The fight isn’t between brands. It is between categories.
And ‘what’s the category’ keeps changing.
Tag: Marketing
-
Whatever made this process of marketing to be called ‘branding’. Of course, even burning money in repetitive advertising for the purpose of branding often doesn’t make branding happen.
Suppose we leave aside the ‘burning money’ phrase and focus more on messaging. In that case would it be worth calling the process ‘etching’.
Then the language changes weirdly.
I own the brand.
I own the etch?! Oops!
Leave a Reply
0
-
Brand
The word is abused enough.
Differentiation, expressing differentiation, all forgotten so soon.
Folks can’t even express the ‘category’ their business operates in. But go about tomtomming ‘brand brand brand’ in every conversation.
What did they do their MBAs and certifications for? SEO?
Leave a Reply
0
-
What has happened to Differentiation?
Dear Al,
I could address you as Dear Al Ries or Dear Mr. Ries, but I feel closer to you than that.
Dear Al, what would you say about differentiation in today’s world of start-ups? I wonder.
Start-ups get plenty of money. They bomb the media with their money. They have messages but nothing sounds memorable, forget sensible.
Sustainability is in fashion. But the start-up has to be sustainably different too.
Start-ups don’t seem to understand categories either.
Do I have to read your books once again? Do start-ups have to?
Do I need more money to understand the start-ups marketing strategy? Is it money that I am not able to understand?
Leave a Reply
0
-
Variety
Mississippi Earrings, so far, has been a business based on and driven by variety.
As if just the variety in designs of earrings wasn’t enough, there’s a variety of pictures to be clicked and handled for every design.
Now am grappling with a variety of Whatsapp marketing software, apart from a variety of things to be studied to conduct business online.
Just insane! Variety is wearing me down.
Leave a Reply
0
-
Understanding Comfort Shumfort
Dear Shoe-lover,
Let me tell you, your shoes are 3D, just as your foot is.
What does 3D mean? 3 dimensional.
Have you noticed a brick carefully? No? It has 6 sides. Top, bottom, front, back, left and right.
It’s the same way with your foot. Top, bottom, front, back, left and right.
When shoe-marketer talks about cushion and arch-support and such things, it means he/she is only talking about comfort for the bottom part of your foot. Yeah?
What about the other 5 sides? You don’t feel any discomfort at the front or at the back or the left or the right or the top part? None! You have some special foot?
Leave a Reply
0
-
Content Writing for Whom?
The way I see things happening, content writing is happening primarily for SEO.
What’s SEO? Or what is it for? For pleasing Google.
It’s another matter though that a big part of Google’s way of ranking and listing may still be a black box for most.
But, let’s say, it isn’t a black box and most of us know precisely how it works.
After pleasing Google, the content has to cross the barrier called human reader. Unless, you say that Google ranking is all that counts for the reader or non-reader, and that all the writing is meant to just please Shri Google.
All the bulleting and keywording that you indulge in, does it bore the reader, does the style appeal to the reader, does it help the reader make sense of the complex matter that is your product or service?
Oh, your SEO optimized content writing + the ridiculous graphical confusion on the screen converts the non-reader who becomes your customer?! Hats off!
Leave a Reply
0
-
Seeing Variety
My variety is better than yours.
Fashion marketers cater to tastes. They also cater to a craving for ‘seeing variety’.
Aur koi option hai? Nahi hai? Jo option aapke paas nahi hai wahi chahiye mujhe.
Leave a Reply
0
-
Kya hai yeh Keeway 250V!
Dear Brand Manager,
What is Victorious Muscle?
You see I wrote on the email id shared on your website but I was kind of dismissed after a short chat with someone in the sales team, that too after a stern follow-up from my end to elicit a response to my email.
No, I did ask for your contact, a way to have a chat with you, even if that meant flying down to your office.
I was told the Marketing Team handles this and has given the project to an agency. “If they need you, they will contact you.”
Who needs whom, well in this world, who can even tell.
I said to the sales guy I was talking with, “Look I’ve got an idea that will really benefit a product like the Keeway 250V in the Indian market. It may position this brand in just the right way and may have a great impact on sales.”
The conversation was closed with some platitudes by your sales guy.
Life, I tell you, even when you have the right idea and the product is right in front of you, you can only wish…
Leave a Reply
0
-
Brands never needed so much writing in public as they do now. Or let’s say, fewer brands, normally big ones, did as much writing as we witness now.
We shouldn’t even discuss the quality of so much writing.
PR-based pegs in the newspapers every once in a while was all that there was to writing.
Word crawlers are crawling,
Where are my words?
Someone, please, write my words
Write my words,
The crawlers should find my words to crawl.
Leave a Reply
0
-
For Start-up Founders
There’s a difference between marketing efforts that serve as reminders, and marketing efforts that serve to improve your coverage.
Word-of-mouth spreads when spreads. Often quite slowly, rarely swiftly.
Don’t let reminders leading to repeat business push you into comfort zone.
One response to “For Start-up Founders”
-
Nice one!.
This is what I see in your post
Replace athose negative reviews with positive comments.Make sure to connect with the people who write the reviews to get their feedback.
Ely ShemerLikeLike
Leave a Reply
1
-
-
Traffic is not a sufficient metric Quality of…
Traffic is not a sufficient metric. Quality of traffic? Out of 100, how many spend a good time to check your products or read your writing?
Leave a Reply
0
-
I am searching for sports shoes FB ad…
I am searching for sports shoes. FB ad by a platform shows me shoes with a button ‘shop now’. I hit the button and I am asked to download the platform app. That’s what online shopping and advertising have been turned into. A mess.
Leave a Reply
0
-
So so so so much of digital marketing…
So so so so much of digital marketing based on ‘cookies’ feels like stalking.
Leave a Reply
0
-
There is no time for story telling But…
There is no time for story-telling. But there’s a good time to put beautiful questions.
Leave a Reply
0
-
Indian sellers haven’t had much time looking into…
Indian sellers haven’t had much time looking into aspects of quality of the things they sell. Platforms are filled with such sellers. What would you get?
Leave a Reply
0
-
Plenty of marketing fails coz of fear of…
Plenty of marketing fails coz of fear of controversary, fear of being sharp enough to pierce through the fog of perceptions.
Leave a Reply
0
-
Isn’t it strange that we have to specify…
Isn’t it strange that we have to specify and search for ‘wide’ shoes for normal feet?! Yeah, ill-shaped shoes have become normal shoes for ‘average feet where average = narrow’, and so, normal feet have become broad feet which require ‘special’ wide-foot shoes. What a mess marketers have made! Words can shape the mind and damage our feet.
Leave a Reply
0
Leave a Reply