MARCH 2016

The Leap

From College to Corporate

The Power
of A140
Leap in
Content Marketing

Another
Shade of
Grey

A Leap between
Target Groups

Let Her take

a Leap
#SharetheLoad

AD-ONOMICS

Let HER take a LEAP

With societal norms moving towards

women empowerment, compnies are
centering their campaigns around
the issue. Vivekananda Reddy finds
out

wo campaigns in year
2014 i.e. the Like a Girl
campaign by P&G and
Respect Women by HAVELLS
Home Appliances caught peoples
attention by going about promoting their product/brand in
a different way. HAVELLS went
after the stereotyping of Indian
women as the care takers of the
house be it in the Kitchen, household chores or in the operation of
home appliances. These campaigns
were like a breath of fresh air .
Most of us admit that there are
certain undesirable stereotypes
that we unknowingly endorse. If
that is the case then why dont we
have more advertisements trying to change the norm? Why
do most companies still go with
women brand ambassadors for
products related to the household? Is it not their responsibility to ensure that the youth get
a fresh perspective and an un-

clouded mind to be able to make compete with men everywhere

up their own mind about gender? including workplace, there seems
to be a nastier truth hidden beThinking from the business per- hind it. The truth is the unequal
spective, it might be riskier to ques- distribution of domestic work.
tion your potential customer and ARIELs new campaign is an atask him/her to change behaviour. tempt to highlight the fact that
Since the society functions with while women may be making great
many preconceived notions and leaps in her professional life, in her
beliefs people might be reluctant own house she is probably doing
to adapt change. Suddenly chang- just the same amount of work she
ing it can lead to loss of customers did before. Share the load is a call
as they may not accept something to action for people, men in particthat they do not see regularly. In ular, to share the burden of housefact this strategy can backfire. hold chores with their beloved. Let
But ARIEL dared to do it her take a leap in all aspects of life.
and it actually nailed it!
In its new campaign, ARIEL has The ad is one of the most disasked if laundry is only a wom- cussed in the social media. Not
ans duty and asks men to con- just because of its beautiful reptribute their part. One of the most resentation but because of the
pressing issues of all times is that emotional aspect it touches in evof gender equality. While media ery human being. Everyone could
portrays and society gives us an relate to the message and that is
image that women are empow- the precise reason its trending.
ered to an extent that they can
1

The Power
of 140
A Leap in Content Marketing
Raunaq Bathija writes on
making the most of Twitters
140 characters for effective
content marketing

Raunaq Bathija

Member, Team MarQuity 15-16

National Finalist, RB Mavericks
Regional Winner, Loreal Brandstorm

f you have a look at the

Hottest trends that companies across industries
are following in the world of
marketing, the first term on
everybodys list is invariably
Content Marketing. The window through which brands are
keeping their followers engaged
on an hourly basis, a gateway
for start-ups to garner fan following in a matter of months
without any major capital
investment, this concept has
already caught on and major
players across the world have
flocked to adopt it into their
digital strategy. This continuous
engagement based on consumer interaction via the content is
a leap over historical practices.
One of the most preferred
platforms to keep the brand

fresh in the minds of the public

is Twitter. With over 233 million
active users, this is a forum for
people to exchange ideas, brands
to recruit new followers and
commoners like you and me to
create compelling brands of ourselves. All it takes is 140 characters! Just 140 characters coupled
with irresistible hashtags and
you may think that the number
of followers will just flow in.
This has been a giant leap not
only in terms of digital marketing but also for consumer-company interaction as a whole.
But the Twitterverse is not
that easy a nut to crack after
all. For a brand to really make

the most of this platform, companies have to pay heed to

these 7 mantras to make the
most of these 140 characters:-

increase in the number of retweets.

This means, brands cannot take
weekends off in the Twitterverse if
they want their message to be heard

1) Curate relevant content

Tweets must have links back to
the blog/website of the brand.
URL shorteners can be used to
reduce the number of characters. Content in the link must
address the problems faced by
customers, engage them in a discussion and advice them on issues that come under your core
competencies. It wont be soon
before you will be considered
a subject matter expert in that
domain if you keep the content
simple, effective and relevant.

5) The #tag dilemma

having a hashtag is the essence of your tweet. These blue
clickable words can leave a
lasting impression in the minds
of the reader, but they can also
turn out to be an eye sore. Surveys
indicate that the optimum number
of #tags used in a tweet must not
be more than 2-3 in number and
they #mustnotberidiculouslylong

2) Use Keywords in your

tweets Twitter users search
for tweets using a certain set of
words. If your tweet happens to
have these magic words, the
number of re-tweets increases drastically. Make use of the
keyword generation tools available online that use Search Engine Optimization and your
tweet will contain just the
right words needed to increase
visibility across all platforms.
3) Keep your tweet limited to
90-110 characters. This is extremely important as it will encourage re-tweeting. People on
twitter are lazy, if your tweet already consists of 140 characters,
re-tweeting it will involve editing
the tweet and in doing so the essence of what the brand was trying to communicate will be lost.
4) Timing makes all the difference when it comes to chances
of increasing the amount of engagement you receive. Tweets
between 8 10am have the
highest number of retweets and
weekends witness around 60%

6) Most brands make the

blunder of pushing their news/
updates onto their followers and
having a one way communication
with them. Instead, brands must
pay more attention to what their
followers, top bloggers are talking
about, re-tweet or mention a few
outstanding tweets, follow up
and initiate a conversation with
followers who comment on the
tweet. Remember the more time
you invest in paying attention
to your followers, the more likely you are the make a convert.
7) Lastly, always try to include
photos/videos in your tweet.
Close to 80% of tweets with images are re-tweeted when compared
to around 33% without images.
Following these tips will just
ensure that you do not falter at
the very basics of twitter marketing. But, like any other content
marketing platform, Content
trumps all. So, go out there, curate content that is precise, relevant and different; stretch the very
fabric of your creative bent of mind!
For all you know, these 140
characters will pave your brands
way to a stronger recognition,
association and recall.
3

Industry outlook

Another
Shade of

GREY

Experience stores have

changed the way
people shop for paints.
Anshul Gupta explores
on

hankar, a young professional from Raipur, visited Delhi

for the first time. When he
was talking a walk in Connaught
place- the heart of Delhi, he saw
something unusual. In the A-block,
he saw a flashy showroom of
Asian paints. What? A paints
shop in CP? he said to himself
and entered the store in curiosity.
What he saw inside was a completely different world to him.
Yes, it was a store for paints,
but not like the conventional
stores. Instead of just the catalogue of colours, there were big
painted panels which could be
shuffled and seen on wall. There
were computers on which prospective customers were experimenting with different colours
on their house walls, virtually.
There have been tectonic shifts
in the methods that marketers of
paints use to communicate with

A Leap between Target Groups

the consumers. Paints industry, for

long, has been relying on building
relationships with the contractors,
dealers, painters and all the commercial stakeholders by offering
incentives like foreign/country

colours, inviting customers to personalize their place as per their

own characteristics. Also, many
icons have been roped in to endorse the premium quality which
comes with the paints, thus emphasizing on the fact that how
an ill-painted house damages
the reputation of the owner.
A range of new paint products,
coupled with communication
driven by fresh ideas has made
the paints category to be seen
as a category which is not just
about the colours but a lot more
than that. Due to the heavy competition among very few players
trips, gifts, heavy commission etc. in the industry, no company is
Another message from paint leaving any stone unturned to inbrands is that consumers can ex- crease its market share. Lets see
press their personality through what this colourful competition
colours. Brands like Nerolac have brings for the consumers, next.
emphasized this through some of
their advertisements, where the
tagline used was Show your true

Gaurav Gupta
PGPM 2015-17
Avid Traveller
Tech Savvy

MarQs and As

HINTS
Down
1.Kansai is a Japanese company well known cause
of an Indian connect
2.First used in a blog post by Stowe Boyd called X
= Twitter Groupings
3.Easier to approach people if you knew there was
mutual interest, what developed cause of this
4.In 2014, the old name was dropped as it was a bit
of a mouthful and the name change would make
life easier
Instructions:
Fill in your answers in the link given below:
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Quiz closes at 6p.m.
Results will be declared at 8p.m.

Across
5.App started as a class project, solves longevity of
personal photographic information
6.Disney character, official ambassador for Keep
Our Oceans Clean
7.Teacher at Kelloggs, X is synonymous with the
subject he teaches but has degrees in economics only
8.This companys products(human versions) would
represent the worlds largest population if they were,
well, human

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