While traditional advertising (radio, print, and television) verbally and visually communicated the brand and product benefits utilsing the traditional “Marketing Mix” of 4Ps. Today dynamics of marketing has changed from traditional marketing mix of Product, Price, Place and Promotion (4Ps) to Consumer, Cost, Convenience and Communication, truly the era where content is the “Queen” and customer is the “King” has arrived.

Today’s consumers have shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons again making them irrelevant.

The world had moved from “one size fits all” to all about “Custom made”, It has now become imperative for the “Brands” to create differentiation and break away from the noise clutter and make a space in customer’s mind space – a mind space which has multitude of choices and even greater options to seek them. Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective with time, and that there has to be a better way.

Enter buzzwords like Big data, Content Marketing and Growth hacking, few words and phrases that make us want to pull our hair out if we hear it one more time. But however cliched they sounds they are here to stay.

Arguably 2014 was the year of content marketing. The search term “content marketing” has hit its all-time high, and you can’t read an article on marketing without someone talking about content.

So what is content marketing ? away from the jargon it means creating and sharing “valuable and relevant” content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. Caveat is, that it is the art of having a conversation with potential and existing customers without actually selling or interrupting them.

Recall when Red Bull sent Felix Baumgartner to the edge of space for freefall? So many brands would kill to generate as much buzz, engagement and word of mouth as Red Bull did.
The lead-up to the event and aftermath was content marketing at its best, but the truth is most of us don’t have the budget and resources of Red Bull. While a big content splash delivers a wave of results it dissipates quickly. Such type of “campaign” approach may not be best for all brands. A more pragmatic and long term is sustainable for most .

While taking pragmatic approach becomes boring if a brand tries to create content that’s cute, clever and funny and repeat it, in a long run what works is creation of content that is useful for the audience with a clever strategy to distribute that content and amplify it.

Sometime brands also try to fill in the “content hole” with “vague greetings” without giving a thought that quality is more important than quantity. Also variety is a key to consumption and my only advise here is mix it up from blogs to infographics to podcast to video but maintain consistency across channels.

Creating compelling content will be the biggest marketing challenge in the year 2015. Brands just need to take a stock, do a bit of research, and create a content plan. Those simple steps would solve a lot of problems when it comes to driving awareness, engagement and conversion via content.

Identifying a mix of content your customers want and creating relevant curated content to help your customers in ways that don’t involve you selling your products and services, might surprise you.

Brands in 2015 should also look for dashboards which captures meaningful insights other than chasing likes and RTs. Sure, social signals matter but more robust dashboards should look for metrics like “engaged time,” visitor loyalty, click-through rates, clue to that lies in having a content audit ,look through Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, competition landscape and figure out what is working for you.

From technology trends to changing business models to evolving consumer behaviors, there’s a lot to consider in order for today’s marketers to really have a handle on what’s important for their audience where content consumption is concerned.

Original Source

Prateek N Kumar, CEO and MD, NeoNiche Integrated, tells us what case study interviews aim to test in a candidate, “Case study interviews are an initiation of thoughtful dialogues about potential approaches to solving a tough business problem. These are the kind of questions that a candidate will face in his/her job and aim to evaluate how a candidate processes information, reacts to challenging situations, solves problems, and the kind of team dynamics a candidate possesses.”

Pankaj Minglani, principal consultant and director, Career Shapers HR Consulting Pvt Ltd, elaborates on the kind of questions asked in such interviews, “Case interview questions are generally related to scenarios like profitability, market entry, revenue growth, mergers and acquisition, technology changes, etc. Some examples of such questions include:

• If a company is planning to launch a new product line, should they buy an organisation to do so or develop the technology in-house?
• What business plan should a company adopt if it is growing well but is unable to reach its profitability goals?
• If a company wants faster expansion, should it be organic or inorganic?
• What could be the potential reasons behind the market share increasing in one geography but decreasing in another?”

Shankar Viswanathan, principal, ZS India, explains why this method of testing candidates has become important today, “Case interviews help differentiate between candidates who know a concept vs those who know and can put it to practice. Organisations are drowning in data today; firms look for candidates who can rapidly derive insights from this huge amount of data and support business decisions. Through case interviews, one can effectively judge a candidate’s decision support abilities.”

Satya D Sinha, CEO, Mancer Consulting, give some tips as to what a candidate can do to perform well in such an interview:

• Practise cases extensively from books and websites before undergoing a case interview. Consider a case-interview workshop;
• Listen carefully to the question. Paraphrase it back to the interviewer to ensure your complete understanding;
• The interviewer expects you to take a minute or two to collect your thoughts, so don’t be afraid of silence;
• Rarely is there one right answer for analysing a case. Your process for reaching your conclusions is equally important to the interviewer as is the conclusion itself. In fact, the interviewer wants to observe as much of that process as possible, so it’s important to ‘think out loud’ as you’re working through the case;
• Questions are expected from the candidate as the information provided about the case is generally incomplete. The interviewer will be looking at your resourcefulness in collecting information in a logical — not random – progression;
• Construct a logical framework with which to explore the critical issues of the case. Make sure your conclusion is grounded in action, not just theory. Be able to explain and defend your reasoning.

Original Source

Adgully caught up with Prateek N Kumar, CEO & MD, NeoNiche Integrated Solutions Pvt. Ltd.  who is known as the “Milestone Man” responsible for converting the company into the largest profit centre within the organization in 5 years.

Integrated Marketing Solutions is something that is growing in India and a lot of brands are demanding these services. Sharing insights about his key clients Kumar said, “NeoNiche is working with more than 98 brands as of today across different Industries including , IT Pharma, Healthcare, Media, Consumer Durables and core business  and for us all these clients are equally important”.

On being asked about the clients response over the increase in digital spends he mentioned that Digital marketing has entered more challenging territory. Elaborating further he said, “Building on the vast increase in consumer power brought on by the digital age Industries dealing in B2C products and services have allocated a large part of their marketing budget into online marketing trends, Now online has become an integral part of their “Marketing Mix”. However, more traditionally rooted industries like Healthcare and Auto are still to exploit the full potential but that trend is slowly changing too.”

Discussing about the percentage of client shifting from traditional to digital and to mobile, he added, “From “Above The Line” to “Below The Line” or if we include “Digital Marketing Elements” as well “Through the Line” has been less of a shift and more of a spread for our clients depending on the objective of each campaign that they are rolling out the demographics and geography that they are reaching out to.”

Talking about the future of NeoNiche, he said, “Without doubt focusing on SMB and start up ecosystem that need a level playing field where marketing is concerned, at least 30 percent of revenue should come from these community. Also we want to drive more values to our customer through our DNA of Ideas, Innovation and Insight in everything that we do.”

Brand managers are constantly increasing their marketing spends on BTL.  According to Kumar the shift from ATL to BTL spending is in part the result of the changing consumer attitudes. He adds, “At the same time, technology allows marketers to better target consumers. BTL initiatives are more successful because they stress targeted and customer-centric communications and create measurable results and return on investment metrics, which are important to marketers under growing pressure to prove the value of their campaigns.”

Adding his thoughts about how BTL has changed in last 5 years he said, “Technology, Internet, social/digital media and smart devises have connected people like never before on the other hand it has provided the marketer with actionable insights. Any BTL (advertising) campaign has been all about speed-to-market with the right message at the right time through the right channel while maintaining brand consistency and being non-intrusive.” He also mentions that BTL directly reaches out to consumers and help them “experience” the brand. They engage, educate and entertain consumers in a way most ATL campaigns cannot.

Further talking about the strengths of NeoNiche, he said, “We do not provide services, we provide solutions that are solely aimed to reinforce relationship between company & customers, brand & buyers and product & prospects, by creating experiences, delivered real time across multiple platforms and deliver measureable results. Whatever we do has an element of ideas, innovation and Insights. They are pushing forward in certain areas like Rural Marketing, the SMB offering which will see lot of innovation and the CSR policy which needs to be even more robust.”

Speaking about the evolution of media buying and spending he said, “The ASIAD Games gave us more than the mascot “Appu”, it was for the first time TV telecast happened in colour and opened the floodgates for advertising.” Quoting an example he said, “We still remember Lalitaji’s pearls of wisdom on which washing powder made your whites look whiter as it was hard to miss on Sunday morning television along with “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”. Those were the times when every brand aspired to be on national broadcaster Doordarshan. An appearance on DD was perceived to be a landmark.”

He elaborates, “The brief for agencies was to create TVCs that appealed to DD’s vast audience. The media buying landscape has experienced dramatic change over the past decade, as consumers spend more time online, have more control over traditional advertising vehicles, and chose to create and share their own content. As a result, some advertisers are evolving to a confluence culture where traditional methods of work must adapt to embrace the new reality of interactive content, emerging media, and production/consumption methods. Now Brands have to deal with reinventing the mass message model helping consumers tell stories and playing in a new landscape.”

On a concluding note Kumar talks about the trends in the coming year. He says, “Marketing trends will see a lot of exploration in social media with elements like selfie Challenge, Hashtag Contest, crowd sourced installations. Mobile will gain even more importance with the better infrastructure and possible 4G spectrum.” By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit

Original Source

It has been almost 25 years since his first successful ‘campaign’ as a child of 7th standard made him taste success when he ‘designed’ sales strategy of his friend’s fire cracker stall spinning a staggering 800% ROI. The enthused young boy has not looked back since.

After starting his career in hospitality and hotel management, he shared in the growth stories with a number of startup event agencies. These gave him tremendous on-ground exposure and hands-on learning. With a dream of creating an agency that would be loved by every stakeholder- clients, vendor partners and employees alike – was NeoNiche born.

Breaking the mold and challenging the status quo is a daily ritual. His greatest strength is the ability to pick the right person for the right job, create self-sustaining and profitable ventures and then stepping aside to let the new leaders take the baton forward. His ever searching eyes are always ready for the next level leaving many milestones behind.

An avid blogger and voracious reader, he is a passionate activist for animal rights and related social causes.

NeoNiche is an intergrated experiential marketing company committed to achieve your marketing objectives and deliver measureable results through a fully integrated portfolio of services.

NeoNiche believes that continous quest for innovation to every “Go To Market Plan”, makes brand proposition unique, effective, measureable, and tangible in its approach. “We seek to reinforce relationship; between company & customers, brand & buyers, product & prospects by creating experiences, delivered real time across multiple platforms.”

Original Source

Where Events were once a method of addressing a captive audience in an enclosed space. Events today have evidently become more useful as an explosive creative device with multiple touch points, with innovative event ideas and formats that encourage real world collaboration and conversation between you and your audience. From information sharing and entertainment the focus has shifted to driving engagement and participation.

More and more Event Management Companies are embracing the new paradigms unleashed in this era of technology, social media and smart devices on addressing issues like driving engagement, conversation, social business, Brand-to-Person and word-of-mouth marketing, as we try to keep up with the changing expectations of audiences today spread across different diaspora.  If you have already signed up to these notions online, it makes more sense than ever to carry those valuable psychological insights into offline marketing campaigns and on ground business events. Which in turn create more engagement, legacy and viral content that may feed back into your “Marketing Mix”.

From a torch weldingsand sculptor to a race with 5000 Santa Clauses, from robotic dancers to holographic trade show presenters, from Bluetooth headset enabled Silent Theatres to Flash Mob events, from Open Mics to Un-conferencing, from Knowledge Café’s to crowd sourced Installation  technologyis fuelling Innovationby blending the online with the offline and changing the event industry. There are way more examples of innovative event management styles, formats and conferencing ideas out there each associated with capturing more engagement, creating user-generated content and awakening imagination. Events have today become a launch pad for generating more content and a stage for 4D experience that extends beyond the conference or exhibition space.

At the core of this innovation lies the “Brand” which sends out the communication to the stakeholders,a unique mix of attributes, tangible and intangible, creating value and influence through promise and deliver an experience offeringits audience a means to choose and enable recognition within cluttered markets.

Brands are moving from the realm of intangible experiences to a more tangible ones, a slow evolution of sorts is taking place, While earlier it was about that brand equity driven largely by the Organizations owning it, The distinguishing qualities of a brand, drawn from all relevant stakeholders, that resulted in personal commitment to and demand from the brand. The Paradigm shift has moved to the “Consumers” today resulting in the humanification of “Brand” one where the consumer is attributing human traits with brands viz; innovative, seriousness, warmth, imagination, caring, etc. This is where “Brands” can help by sending out messages laced with innovative and creative packaging of communication across multiple touch points.

At the end of the day this is what a brand custodians and event managers look for, A Smile of a satisfied client or the happy roars of an excited audience…That rush of adrenaline when it all falls together…And presto you are ready for the next one.

Original Source

After starting his career in hospitality and hotel management, he shared in the growth stories with a number of startup event agencies. These gave him tremendous on-ground exposure and hands-on learning. With a dream of creating an agency that would be loved by every stakeholder – clients, vendor partners and employees alike – was NeoNiche born. Idea-driven, Innovation-focused and Insightful – these core qualities became the DNA and driving force of the organization.

Breaking the mold and challenging the status quo is a daily ritual. With his head in the skies and feet firmly on the ground, Prateek is as Prateek does. Driven by passion, his versatility and adaptability, people-skills and big-picture view-point make him the leader he is. His greatest strength is the ability to pick the right person for the right job, create self-sustaining and profitable ventures and then stepping aside to let the new leaders take the baton forward. Then, he sets his eyes on the next target and begins the march forward- perhaps that’s why they call him ‘The Milestone Man’.

An avid blogger and voracious reader, he is a passionate activist for animal rights and related social causes.

Here he talks exclusively to www.corecommunique.com about his vision, the emerging integrated experimental marketing space and NeoNiche. Excerpts:

Q1. What is “integrated experiential marketing” – the space where NeoNiche is placing itself?
Ans : We understand that any marketing campaign or events cannot exist in silos. There are different audiences who have different receptiveness and each of these demographics of audience have different triggers that different brands are trying to connect with by creating experience across different mediums both online and on ground… Era of social media and smart devises have blurred the lines between traditional Ad agencies and Event agencies… these is where NeoNiche comes in.

Q2. Who are your potential customers? What kind of numbers have you achieved so far?
Ans: Our clientele is spread across different Industry verticals right from IT, ITES, BFSI, Manufacturing, Media, Healthcare and lifestyle, many of these clients are spread across the globe. We have been able to keep the business profitable with a focus of bringing values to our stakeholders be it Clients, Partners, Employee or Society. From beginning our focus has been to create lasting relationship rather than always looking at the bottom-line.

Q3. Going ahead, what are your immediate plans for the future? Where do you see yourself 5 years down the line?
Ans: Our immediate plan for the future is to create a value based solutions for Startups and SMB segment, who have either limited or non-existent marketing budget. A performance driven model with profit sharing as we think that lot of innovations can be created in this untapped segment. It’s difficult to outline the specifics 5 year down the line, what I can truly say is that in 5 years NeoNiche will be creating more values for its Stakeholders be it our Clients, our ecosystem partners, our employees and society in general.

Q4. How did you move into the world of BTL? What promise does it hold for a market like India?
Ans: Honestly its providence, My parents wanted me to become a doctor I chose hotel management instead as my preferred career. However, I was more interested in abstract ideas and organizing Rose Days, Prom Nights and many of those events that you see in any campuses rather than making and serving delicacies. BTL was still largely unorganized space and I landed up here. On a lighter vain I always blame it on “Road Less travelled” by Robert Frost. I frankly believe that the line is blurring between traditional “Above The Line” (ATL) and “Below The Line” (BTL) agencies. Digital and social media advancement has given rise to another form “Beyond The Line” where it is all about experiences… for a country like ours which has diaspora of culture, demographics and geographies lot is yet to happen as we advance in places beyond Metros and Tier I cities and as more and more smaller cities and villages are connected by better roads and amenities ,electricity and internet connectivity creating level playing field a new and almost untapped set of target audiences will create opportunities’ for Brand and Marketers.

Q5. What are the specific areas that you want to concentrate immediately? Which domains have warmed up to BTL already?
Ans: “Campaign in a Box” as a offering for SMB is our immediate focus. Almost all B2C brands and quite a few B2B brands have embraced a more robust Marketing Mix with ATL, BTL and Digital as part of their strategies.

Q6. What is your advice to the fence sitters?
Ans: The moment you think you have got the answers someone comes along the way and changes the very question, Customer is truly a Queen / king with so many information and options, to win the trust and to connect with her or him constantly in a very user driven non-intrusive way.

Q7. As a self professed “Social Media Junkie” what are your views on social media integration so that your expertise can be made to go viral using the social media space?
Ans: Social media is still a very untapped domain where marketing a brand is concerned, However, utilizing the right mix of Social handles starts from understanding your TG as it helps in establishing relevance, grab eyeballs, raise awareness, build relationships at a personal level, create memories, increase loyalty, encourage interactions and stimulate positive WOM.

Q8. Anything that you would like to communicate to our readers.
Ans: We do live in exiting times where many of us have evolved from using Trunk Calls to STD Booths to Smart phones, From Super Mario to Temple Run on our Smart Phones, from Pager to Smart Phones, From Camera to Smart Phones, From DVD to Smart Phones, From Remote to Smart phones From Branch banking to ATMs to Smart Phone Banking… My wild guess is as good as yours after the invention of Wheel possibly we are standing at the cusp of another devise which is bound to change the human race.

Original Interview Link

He said that the era of “one size fits all” and “rack listed services” are over, Brands today does not talk about tangible products but intangible experience that they create. One way communication has changed to one to one and one to many, he added.

Excerpts of the interview…

Please tell our readers more about your group – NeoNiche.
Prateek N Kumar: NeoNiche Integrated is an experiential marketing company which acts as an extended marketing team to the clients that we serve. We conceptualize multidisciplinary brand building strategies across different platforms be it online – digital and social, or on ground through customer contact programs, events and exhibitions. At the core of our offering lies our value proposition of Ideas, Innovation & Insight

What other services you have? In what ways you can help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)?
Prateek N Kumar: Our services helps our clients reach out to their Customers, Channels and Employees both offline and online to create positive connections .For SMEs we have a dedicated offering “SME Konnect” which works on basic cost of operation and profit sharing model. By doing this we take care that our SME clients are not burdened by huge budget constraints and every initiative pays for itself. Under this initiative, our SME clients get robust communication campaigns for their target audience across different geographies. It helps them reach out to a large audience and create focused loyalty programs for their existing client base. I also adds a professional approach to their sales pipeline creation.

From Small and Medium Business (SMB) point of view… Brand or Product – which is more important?Prateek N Kumar: Not only for SMEs but for any enterprise, while “Product” is important the identity or “Brand” is what creates the connection much beyond the realm of a single product or service. However important a product /service may be for a particular time with time they tend to become obsolete but eventually the “Brand” takes the other offerings of the Organization forward.

Why brand is so important? Your views. Prateek N Kumar: The moment you think you have got all the answers someone comes along the way and changes the very question, eventually new technologies, services and products are invented, upgraded and old ones are discarded ultimately it’s the brand which stands for the promise that we make to our Customers for current set of products and services as well as the new ones that will come in the future.

What is Below the line (BTL) advertising? How important is BTL for promoting a brand? Prateek N Kumar: We do live in exciting times, where things change with a blink of an eye. Today speed-to-market with the right message, at the right time, through the right channel while maintaining brand consistency, coordinating with multiple internal and external stake holders, developing actionable insights are clear challenges that a brand faces and the same is better addressed by BTL Campaigns because they stress targeted and customer-centric communications and create more effective results and ROI metrics.

What kind of brands seek to benefit most from BTL? Prateek N Kumar: Any kind of Brands from any industry as long as they carry relevant messaging and converts “Brand Promise” to “Brand Action” will benefit from BTL Campaigns .

Why BTL is a better return on marketing investment? Prateek N Kumar: Today branding is a function of media fragmentation. More channels and more newspaper reaching out to diverse customer base, makes it harder for marketers to reach a truly mass audience. Simply stated, above-the-line marketing that utilizes generic messages to build awareness is no longer the best way to influence customer behavior. Also The shift from ATL to BTL spending is in part the result of changing consumer attitudes; more sophisticated consumers demand relevant messaging that engages them in a dialogue and allows them to interact with the brand through their preferred communication channels.

Capital in hand is a big issues for most of SMEs in India. In that case what kind of marketing strategy is the best for them?Prateek N Kumar: Small businesses do suffer from lack of funds that a large enterprise enjoys; but that does not mean creating brand name is expensive. SMEs just need to find the most cost effective way to promote their brand. First do a little research and decide what will be the best medium to reach the target audience. Think of unique ways to communicate with their target audience. Apply innovative approach like Profit sharing rather than cost based model with “Agencies”, or Utilize online tools. Etc.

How you see the Social & Digital Marketing? Prateek N Kumar: While the current BTL trends are exciting lot is yet to happen when a marketer will face a new set of challenges with new and yet to be invented technology and devices …The biggest challenge will be to be less intrusive yet establish a more relevant one on one connection. I frankly believe that the line is blurring between traditional “Above The Line” (ATL) and “Below The Line” (BTL) marketing .Digital and social media advancement has given rise to another form “Through The Line” where it is all about experiences ….for a country like ours which has diaspora of culture ,demographics and geographies lot is yet to happen as we advance in places beyond Metros and Tier I cities and as more and more smaller cities and villages are connected by better roads and amenities ,electricity and internet connectivity creating level playing field a new and almost untapped set of target audiences will create opportunities’ for Brand and Marketers where marketing will be through smart devices and even more personalized….For brands life within the pixel will change

Your group – NeoNiche also helps in aligning employees and channel to deliver the brand promise to customers and help clients build strong footprints. Please tell something more on this. (How do you do this?)Prateek N Kumar: As stated earlier we conceptualize multidisciplinary brand building strategies across different platforms be it online – digital and social, or on ground through customer contact programs, events and exhibitions through our value proposition of Ideas, Innovation & Insights.

What do you have for start-up companies? Also suggest that what kind of advertising tool they must apply in their plan so they can generate more and more business?Prateek N Kumar: We have offerings like “SME Konnect” based on Cost plus profit model where we partner startups in true sense there are other offerings like “Seminar in a Box” where we template the touch points between Startups and their TG.

Tell something about the importance of establishing an emotional connect with customers today. Why and How?Prateek N Kumar: The era of “one size fits all” and “rack listed services” are over, Brands today does not talk about tangible products but intangible experience that they create, One way communication has changed to one to one and one to many. Today’s customer is more informed and advent of social media have changed them from user to influencers in true sense, Today the success of a brand lies in creating emotional connect with their TG, One which changes “brand promise” to “brand action” .

But lot has changed today and lot will, globalization and technology advancement is shaping the way we perceive and see things today like never before. Strategies, tactics, and processes that just a decade ago reigned supreme, now look a little out of sync, when viewed through today’s consumer perspective.

Today branding is a function of media fragmentation. More channels and more newspaper reaching out to diverse customer base, makes it harder for marketers to reach a truly mass audience.Simply stated, above-the-line marketing that utilizes generic messages to build awareness is no longer the best way to influence customer behavior.

The shift from ATL to BTL spending is in part the result of changing consumer attitudes; more sophisticated consumers demand relevant messaging that engages them in a dialogue, and which allows them to interact with the marketer through their preferred communication channels. At the same time, technology allows marketers to better target consumers, and to better track results and measure ROI of BTL campaigns.

Below-the-line initiatives are more successful because they stress targeted and customer-centric communications. Below-the-line also creates measurable results and ROI metrics, which are important to marketers under growing pressure to prove the value of their campaigns and believe me this demand for quantitative results will continue to intensify as more and more technology advancement takes place in near future.

We do live in exciting times, where things change within a blink of an eye.Today speed-to-market with the right message at the right time through the right channel while maintaining brand consistency, coordinating with multiple internal and external stake holders, developing actionable insights are clear challenges that a brand faces and the same is better addressed by BTL.

As the line between traditional ATL and BTL has started blurring, marketers have started looking for a more robust marketing mix, one which will interact with consumers in unbelievable ways at various touch points, allowing brands to come alive for the TG by creating connections between brand and consumer, in their personal world. These connections should be formed by experiences that are personally unique but relevant to the consumer, it should be memorable for them, it should be interactive, and it should invoke emotion and lead to sales and brand loyalty.

While the current BTL trends are exciting lot is yet to happen when a marketer will face a new set of challenges with new and yet to be invented technology and devices… The biggest challenge will be to be less intrusive yet establish a more relevant one on one connection… A paradox isn’t it?

But something remarkable happened in the 90s in India and became a buzzword we know today as “Economic liberalization” which opened the floodgates of breakthrough reforms for international trade and investment, deregulation, initiation of privatization, tax reforms, and inflation-controlling measures. The generation of ours and saw a whole new world where globalization and technology advancement shaped the way we perceived and saw things like never before and gave rise to a whole new breed of Consumers. Consumption was no longer about available choices but getting what you want on your terms.

Internet, Smart devices and Technology created a world in which, to a greater extent than ever before, individuals and small businesses competed and collaborated across the globe for a mindshare of the prospective customer residing anywhere again fragmented into demographics, geographies and so on.

While traditional advertising (radio, print, and television) verbally and visually communicated the brand and product benefits utilizing the traditional “Marketing Mix” of 4Ps the world had moved from “one size fits all” to all about “Custom made”, It has now become imperative for the Marketers to create differentiation and break away from the clutter and make a space in customer’s mind space… a mind space which has multitude of choices.

Brands shifted their focus from more traditional ATL /BTL to TTL way of marketing their products and services as a result of changing consumer attitudes; Today more sophisticated and informed consumers demands relevant messaging that engages them in a dialogue, and which allows them to interact with the marketer through their preferred communication channels. The world changed from Brand Promise to Brand experience addressed by whole new form of Marketing termed as what we call experiential marketing which tries to immerse the consumers within the product by engaging as many senses as possible. In this way, experiential marketing can encompass a variety of other marketing strategies from individual sampling to large-scale guerrilla marketing.While traditional advertising (radio, print, television) verbally and visually communicates the brand and product benefits, experiential marketing tries to immerse the consumers within the product by engaging as many other human senses as possible. In this way, experiential marketing can encompass a variety of other marketing strategies from individual sampling to large-scale guerrilla marketing.In the end, the goal of experiential marketing is to form a memorable and emotional connection between the consumer and the brand.

For the closer connection Marketers have started looking for more robust Marketing mix, one which will interact with consumers in unbelievable ways at various touch points, allowing brands to come alive for the TG by creating connections between brand and consumer, in their personal world. These connections should be formed by experiences that are personally unique but relevant to the consumer, it should be memorable for them, it should be interactive, and it should invoke emotion and lead to sales and brand loyalty. Today dynamics of marketing has changed from traditional marketing mix of Product, Price, Place and Promotion (4Ps) to Consumer, Cost, Convenience and Communication… Truly the era where content is the “Queen” and customer is the “King” has arrived.

Memories are always created what has changed is the realm in which they are created while Lalitaji’s may be a part of our memory dispensing advice to our mothers today her granddaughter will be dispensing the same advice to a more  informed audience as per their convenience on their smart devices, saying “Daag acche hai”……

Lot has changed and lot will, not only for the Brands’ but also for people and organizations working in the Experiential Marketing domain. Globalization and technology advancement is shaping the way we perceive and see things today like never before. Strategies, tactics, and operational processes that just a decade ago reigned supreme, now look a little out of sync, when viewed through today’s brand perspective.

As the line between traditional ATL and BTL have started blurring, marketers have started looking for more robust Marketing mix, one which will interact with consumers in unbelievable ways at various touch points, allowing brands to come alive for the TG by creating connections between brand and consumer, in their personal world. These connections should be formed by experiences that are personally unique but relevant to the consumer, it should be memorable for them, it should be interactive, and it should invoke emotion and lead to sales and brand loyalty.

Unlike traditional marketing, experiential marketing tries to tap that special trigger within the consumers’ mind space, one which invokes thoughts about comfort and pleasure, as well as inspiring a sense of practicality. This implies that the marketer needs to have a firm grip on the mindset of the target audience he or she wishes to attract. By understanding what the consumer is likely to think and feel, it is possible to get an idea of how to steer the customer in a direction that will relate with the product,but to do that it is important to engage as many of the senses as possible. Striking displays with powerful visual elements, such as websites, and visual media such as Print Ads, Billboards and mailers should not only be visually appealing, but also conjure up imagination and sensations that are relevant to the individual. When a Marketer or an agency creates customer experiences of this nature, a sense of rapport between the Brand and its consumer is established that helps to make the offerings more desirable with each encounter.

Well guess what, that ads on the Internet, or in print media, and on modern billboards must immediately catch the attention of prospective clients and hold that attention long enough to make an impact. Success for brand lies in and making the connection quickly and seamlessly, Clients today are looking for agencies which can grow up the value chain from being a vendor to a true marketing partner, one who understands their brand essence and promise and provides ‘Value for money’ solutions rather than rack-listed services, Agencies which are capable of rolling out that magic campaign which makes those connection with the prospect and retain that mindshare.

We as a Marketers or Agencies servicing these brands, can pat our back only if we are able to roll out integrated campaigns both online and offline across different mediums. The Campaigns which can establish relevance, grab eyeballs, raise awareness, build relationships at a personal level, create memories, increase loyalty, encourage interactions and stimulate positive WOM, and last but not the least however clichéd it may sound one which has a tangible return on marketing investment.

Living politics aside, the “AAP Phenomenon” will be one of the most discussed, debated, diagnosed and dissected case study at all social and corporate do’s of 2014.One which can highlight at great length how budget becomes secondary when you have an “Out of the Box” idea which makes connection with the TG and uses Guerilla Marketing, Door to door connection and Social Media canvassing… One of the best ROI I must say…

We do live in exciting times, where things change within a blink of an eye. What keeps all of us who are a part of this exciting discipline called marketing on the go, is our undying passion, that adventurous streak, our affinity for challenges and that gush of adrenalin when it all falls together… Those “moments of truth”, knowledge of a work well done and we are ready for the next challenge… aren’t we?