IIPM Faculty Rajita Chaudhuri on BEAT BOREDOM TO BEAT COMPETITORS
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Dean Business School IIPM
Beating boredom was a challenge that these brands had to overcome. One was Ariel. A detergent is not a very interesting product category but Ariel did some interesting stuff, which got people talking about washing. At the Stockholm railway station, it set up a glass box which had clothes revolving on a stand. In front was a robot which squirted out chocolate, ketchup, jam etc. The game was, if you managed to aim well and stain a cloth, it would be washed then and there with Ariel and given to you for free (of course, stain free). The best part was that you could play this game on Facebook too! Washing suddenly became fun and got people talking about it.
So when the movie Green Lantern was about to be launched in Brazil last month, the moviemakers thought of an interesting idea. They put green LED lights on bicycle tyres and when the wheels started spinning, the lights made the logo of Green Lantern on the wheel, along with the release date of the movie. It caught the attention of the young viewers who found it cool, apart from making the cycles more visible to car drivers… which was an added bonus!
Apart from giving a good product, give people something to talk about, give them a good story and it will sell your product more. Marketing is not a one-time activity; rather, it’s a continuous process and many a time, doing something out of the ordinary just works like magic. Amazon.com has launched a new feature on Kindle (its e-reader). While reading a book, you can also send tweets to the author of the book and ask him questions. His answers will come in your e-mail. It just makes reading a bit more interactive and fun!
After all, you need to break the monotony and do different and interesting things to remain relevant. Throughout history, great entrepreneurs have not just worked on making a good product, but also on finding interesting and engaging ways to inform the public about them. Many of these stunts today have become historical events. When newspaper publisher Henri Desgrange started a bicycle race to promote his newspaper, he never in his wildest imagination thought that it would be the world’s most awaited bicycle race. Tour de France, started more than 100 years ago, today promotes a whole lot of brands and is one of the most loved events. Similarly, when Atlantic City wanted to attract tourists to its city, it thought of a novel idea of starting the Miss America Pageant in 1921. The event has snowballed into a big show watched by millions even today. Pillsbury launched its Pillsbury Bake-Off as a one time event never knowing that the idea would be such a hit that this would become its annual event. Even today, the event has not lost its popularity.
Many of these ideas are simple and not really expensive, but they work – much like some low-budget movies that work in spite of being made in a simple manner. This one gave Hollywood its famous star apart from five sequels. The movie in question is Rocky, inspired by Chuck Wepner’s fight against Ali, made on a small budget of $1000,000 the movie broke all expectations and records as it became a super hit and grossed $225,000,000!
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