IIPM Ranked No. 1 B-School In Global Exposre - Zee...
There are still others like Puma, Reebok, Alibaba.com and many auto majors, et al, that are loathe to experiment, restricting themselves to plain vanilla banner ads on these networks that cost much more than creative campaigns. On the other hand, seeing the inherent potential many brands have gone the whole hog in an attempt to start and create a buzz around their own social networking platform. Take HUL’s shampoo brand Sunsilk’s attempt at creating an all-girl’s online community. Sunsilk Gang of Girls accomplished an online membership of 2,00,000 members in less than three months of its launch and is today the largest online all-girl community with over 42,040 gangs and 700,734 members. The idea was to enable girls across-the-globe, to ‘bond’ with each other and have lots of ‘girly’ fun – be it obsessing over a particular hair colour or lending a kind ear to a friend, besides enhancing the equity of the Sunsilk brand.
On their part, social networks are busy figuring out newer ways for brands to engage with their resident communities, without hampering their privacy. If MySpace is encouraging small and medium businesses to setup online stores and providing tools to make it easy to self-serve advertisements to their customers; Facebook is busy fanning the branding wave with the ‘fan’sumer. The site is encouraging users to identify with brands and become a fan (like a friend). The brands, in turn, may use these fans as endorsers to their own networks, resulting in trusted word-of-mouth. Videos, widgets and other applications can also be a part of this application. If a user, say Ratna, becomes a fan of Revlon, the latter can opt to purchase SocialAds from Facebook to display on Ratna’s profile. If Ratna ever makes an e-commerce transaction with Revlon, the Facebook Beacon service then transmits her action to her all her friends’ newfeeds, recommending similar. Ingenuous, ain’t it?
But here’s the inevitable word of caution. Social networks may be a smart and low cost way of building relations with a whole community of segmented (demographic and behavioural axes) users, but remember that the very popularity of social networks is what can also harm your brand. As Murthy asserts, “People don’t go there to see ads or click on them, so you run the risk of becoming a wallpaper on Orkut or Facebook.” Besides, if you have the benefit of influencing an entire group’s buying behaviour; you simultaneously run the risk of inviting their combined ire, if you ever serve them a wrong deal. Cadbury had to recall their Wispa Bar in the UK last year following pressure from social networking groups on MySpace and Bebo where the numbers demanding recall went as high as 14,000. Even Dell India was blown away by bloggers, as there were numerous complaints over its battery across social networks, forcing the company to respond pro-actively to consumer complaints. Talk about a true double-edged sword, if ever there was one. But that’s for marketers. For consumers, finally a community voice and action forum can help them bid adieu to shoddy products. Whether for kicking out mediocrity or a super cool way to create the buzz around your brand, social networks are here to stay. Love em’ or hate em’, but you certainly can’t ignore them!
Pawan Chabra and Neha Saraiya
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
Read these article :-
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global (Print Version)
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
IIPM Campus
ZEE BUSINESS BEST B SCHOOL SURVEY
IIPM awards four Bengali novelists
The Hindu : Education Plus : Honour for IIPM
IIPM ranked No.1 B-School in India, Management News - By ...
IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
Moneycontrol >> News >> Press- News >> IIPM ranked No1 B-School in ...
IIPM ranked No. 1 B-school in India- Zee Business Survey ...
» IIPM ranked No1 B-School in India :: Education, Careers ...
The Hindu Business Line : IIPM placements hit a high of over 2000 jobs
Deccan Herald - IIPM ranked as top B-School in India
India eNews - IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
IIPM Delhi - Indian Institute of Planning and Management New Delhi ...
IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM makes business education truly global-Education-The Times of ...
There are still others like Puma, Reebok, Alibaba.com and many auto majors, et al, that are loathe to experiment, restricting themselves to plain vanilla banner ads on these networks that cost much more than creative campaigns. On the other hand, seeing the inherent potential many brands have gone the whole hog in an attempt to start and create a buzz around their own social networking platform. Take HUL’s shampoo brand Sunsilk’s attempt at creating an all-girl’s online community. Sunsilk Gang of Girls accomplished an online membership of 2,00,000 members in less than three months of its launch and is today the largest online all-girl community with over 42,040 gangs and 700,734 members. The idea was to enable girls across-the-globe, to ‘bond’ with each other and have lots of ‘girly’ fun – be it obsessing over a particular hair colour or lending a kind ear to a friend, besides enhancing the equity of the Sunsilk brand.On their part, social networks are busy figuring out newer ways for brands to engage with their resident communities, without hampering their privacy. If MySpace is encouraging small and medium businesses to setup online stores and providing tools to make it easy to self-serve advertisements to their customers; Facebook is busy fanning the branding wave with the ‘fan’sumer. The site is encouraging users to identify with brands and become a fan (like a friend). The brands, in turn, may use these fans as endorsers to their own networks, resulting in trusted word-of-mouth. Videos, widgets and other applications can also be a part of this application. If a user, say Ratna, becomes a fan of Revlon, the latter can opt to purchase SocialAds from Facebook to display on Ratna’s profile. If Ratna ever makes an e-commerce transaction with Revlon, the Facebook Beacon service then transmits her action to her all her friends’ newfeeds, recommending similar. Ingenuous, ain’t it?
But here’s the inevitable word of caution. Social networks may be a smart and low cost way of building relations with a whole community of segmented (demographic and behavioural axes) users, but remember that the very popularity of social networks is what can also harm your brand. As Murthy asserts, “People don’t go there to see ads or click on them, so you run the risk of becoming a wallpaper on Orkut or Facebook.” Besides, if you have the benefit of influencing an entire group’s buying behaviour; you simultaneously run the risk of inviting their combined ire, if you ever serve them a wrong deal. Cadbury had to recall their Wispa Bar in the UK last year following pressure from social networking groups on MySpace and Bebo where the numbers demanding recall went as high as 14,000. Even Dell India was blown away by bloggers, as there were numerous complaints over its battery across social networks, forcing the company to respond pro-actively to consumer complaints. Talk about a true double-edged sword, if ever there was one. But that’s for marketers. For consumers, finally a community voice and action forum can help them bid adieu to shoddy products. Whether for kicking out mediocrity or a super cool way to create the buzz around your brand, social networks are here to stay. Love em’ or hate em’, but you certainly can’t ignore them!
Pawan Chabra and Neha Saraiya
For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
Read these article :-
B-schooled in India, Placed Abroad (Print Version)
IIPM in Financial times (Print Version)
IIPM makes business education truly global (Print Version)
The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM)
IIPM Campus
ZEE BUSINESS BEST B SCHOOL SURVEY
IIPM awards four Bengali novelists
The Hindu : Education Plus : Honour for IIPM
IIPM ranked No.1 B-School in India, Management News - By ...
IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
Moneycontrol >> News >> Press- News >> IIPM ranked No1 B-School in ...
IIPM ranked No. 1 B-school in India- Zee Business Survey ...
» IIPM ranked No1 B-School in India :: Education, Careers ...
The Hindu Business Line : IIPM placements hit a high of over 2000 jobs
Deccan Herald - IIPM ranked as top B-School in India
India eNews - IIPM Ranked No1 B-School in India
IIPM Delhi - Indian Institute of Planning and Management New Delhi ...
IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM makes business education truly global-Education-The Times of ...
