For a fair share of those advertising dollars

Why is it that education brands matter? Should education not be outside the purview of branding? And what should one focus on in building education brands?

Shyla Lopez, Mangalore

Shyla, sadly nothing is outside the purview of branding. Even the most sacrosanct institutions are pervaded by brands.

Brands matter in the education sector because they represent heritage. Brand names say a lot about the history of the education brand. ISB and IIM are not just three letters of the alphabet strung together. Each stands for a high quality of management education. In many ways the brand is a reputation that has high recall value and has the capacity to woo prospective students and recruiters alike. Therefore, a brand is important for all that it stands for.

Importantly, fine, focused positioning is very important in institution branding. It is important to own the high ground and focus upon it. Positioning is that defined spot a brand occupies in the mind of a consumer at a given point of time in relation to all the other brands that occupy that consumer's mind.

My simple mantra: Avoid top-down branding. Avoid advertising altogether. Focus on bottom-up branding. Gandhiji built his brand bottom up. Colgate builds its brand top-down. An education institution is more akin to Gandhiji than toothpaste.

In education brands, I do believe Lakshmi and Saraswathi do not go together. In India, education has never been about money. The moment you splurge Lakshmi (money element) on an education brand, the Saraswathi element (learning) gets affected.

Reputation is not bought by buying media space and PR. Repute is built by the output of students, the depth of the faculty, the research backbone of an institute and, indeed, the good deeds of its alumni.

FMCG is a staid category today. One witnesses this in its people practices as well. Why?

R.S. Joshipura, Kolkata

Joshipura-ji, the FMCG category is meant to have the right reverse image of what you say. But it is true. Over the years, other categories have overtaken FMCG in their people management practices.

Recruiting young and training for a lifetime is a great and idealistic thing for companies to do. The FMCG sector believed in this. Today, however, this does not work. The aspirations of the young are changing. We live in what I call the ‘I-Gen', the Impatient Generation. Young people are hooked to Twitter and behave as though they were little sparrows that perch here today and somewhere else tomorrow. In such an environment, I believe FMCG companies are losing the opportunity to use a practice that works, one that builds loyalty and stems attrition — sometimes by as much as 8-12 per cent on its own merit: internal branding.

The innovation edge of FMCG companies is getting dulled. In the old days young people wanted to work in companies that offered stable pay packages and work profiles. Today, when everyone offers the same, the young are looking for something different. They are looking keenly at job profiles that keep changing. They are looking at innovations on the product and services front and at items that will help them cobble together a resume filled with exciting new experiences. In such a market, the FMCG category is seen as dull and insipid. Static.

The FMCG category is certainly not a static category. It is a dynamic one. It needs to step out and claim its rightful place under the HR sun.

How do you rate the chances of Saina Nehwal, Vijender Singh and others of their calibre from other sports in the brand endorsement market?

Not very good. Rather shallow, temporal and bleak. Harsh words, but I say it with some pain. Pain because cricket is the lowest common denominator game in India that grabs all the eyeballs (as many as 763 million of them!) besides all the precious marketing money.

Most mass FMCG brands, lifestyle offerings, durables and everyone with deep marketing pockets, park their money in cricket.

The rest look at other games. Sportspersons such as Saina Nehwal, Abhinav Bindra and Vijender Singh in many ways get only the leftovers from the mass sport that is cricket. The marketing logic is a simple one. I will park my moneys where the eyeballs are.

Marketing investments that follow hockey, shooting, badminton and more are normally temporal investments that float while the sport and its most recent victories by Indians are still fresh in public memory.

I do believe a correction is needed in this. This correction cannot happen for esoteric reasons of affirmative action in the realm of sport. Instead, it must happen by a plan governed by a carefully orchestrated strategy.

There is a need to use a menu of sporting options and sports personalities for the endorsement circuit. This menu must be well devised and planned. It could be put together by a conglomeration of non-cricket sports stars. I would love to put together such a forum and plan for them provided five of them approach me together. I think this is an idea whose time has come.

When does mystery marketing work? When do teaser campaigns deliver? Any touchstone issues.

Preiti Mullick, Raipur

Preiti, mystery marketing works in advertising environments where there is too much of clutter in terms of overt branding.

Therefore, the first ad that does not use its brand name but leaves behind small little clues of what it could be and finally reveals it all, works.

Once a few have done this, the aura of such advertising and marketing ceases. The point is simple — in a market when everyone is shouting the loudest, the one whispering the least is heard the most. Most mystery marketing campaigns aim for this.

The core idea is to tell it all later. Reveal the brand in the final, rather than in the first, few seconds as most brands do.

Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Email: > askharishbijoor@gmail.com

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