Comparative Advertising - AD Wars by Amul

"AMUL"  one of the most loved brands in India is known for its innovative and cheeky advertisements which makes everyone go aww. But a recent comparative advertisement which it released on print and social media caused a small AD war.

So what is this comparative advertising?

According to Investopedia Comparative advertising is a marketing strategy in which a company's product or service is presented as superior when compared to a competitor's. A comparative advertising campaign may involve printing a side-by-side comparison of the features of a company's products next to those of its competitor. 

This advertisement is what caused it all

A simple innocent looking question

 "Does your butter cookie contain butter or vegetable oil?"

You can read the original tweet by clicking on this link.

  This created a lot of interaction online and many started posting their own content of different brands of biscuits and complained.

Every brand of biscuit which claimed as butter cookie was dragged in by the consumers, this was further enhanced by the contest which was titled as #AmulButterCookie challenge which made people tweet out with comparative images.

This is not the first time when Amul has done comparative advertising; it has earlier done it for its ice-cream range, where it asked whether you are having ice-cream or frozen dessert. It was taking advantage of a regulatory rule which listed products made from vegetable oil as frozen dessert. 

Not only Amul but Havmor icecreams also sent out a cheeky ad targeting frozen desserts.

HUL was not humoured and it approached the courts and argued the advertisement was disparaging its product and got an injunction against the advertisement which it prominently displays in its webpage, along with the comparision chart of process of making frozen desserts and ice-creams.

But In this case of butter cookies, Amul has met its match in Britannia , they turned the tables on Amul and put forward to customers how much fat will they consume in this ad.

They ended with this tag saying

 "Too Much Butter may not always be better."

Now this is what we require in a good ad war. Lets see how it progresses....

A Brief Timeline of Internet Developments

1958 US ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) established to lead science
           and military technological developments.
1961 MIT research paper of Packet Switching Theory.
1961-69 Ongoing research into inter-computer communications and networks.
1969 ARPANET, commissioned by US Defense Department, goes live.
         US universities connect up network facilities for the first time.
1971 Ray Tomlinson creates first network email application.
1973 Development of protocols to enable multi-network Internet opportunities.
         First international ARPANET connections made.
1976 HM Queen Elizabeth II sends an email.
1978 First spam email is recorded.
1980 Tim Berners-Lee develops rules for the World Wide Web and is credited as the
          Web Father.
         Alan Emtage develops the first search tool known as ‘ARCHIE’.
1982 Standard network protocols are established: Transmission Control Protocol
           (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), commonly referred to as TCIP/IP.
1984 Joint Academic Network (JANET) is established, linking higher education
         institutions.
         Domain Name System (DNS) is introduced.
1985 A company named Symbolics becomes the first registered dot.com domain.
1987 National Science Foundation (US) is the catalyst for the surge in funded work
         into the Internet.
         Number of Internet hosts increases significantly in this period. 
1988-90  28 countries sign up to hook up to the NSFNET, reinforcing international
              Internet potential.
1990 Senator Al Gore coins the term ‘information superhighway’.
1991 Web Father, Tim Berners-Lee releases World Wide Web (www) with scientists
         from CERN.
1992 America Online (AOL) is launched and raises $23m in floatation.
        The term ‘surfing the net’ is introduced by Jean Armour Polly.
         The World Bank goes online.
1993 Mainstream media attention increases awareness of the Internet.
        First Internet publication. Wired, goes on sale.
        Mosaic introduces the first web browser with graphical interface and is the
        forerunner of Netscape Navigator.
        First online shopping malls and virtual banks emerge as does evidence of
        spam.
        First clickable banner advert is sold by Global Network Navigator to a law firm.
1995 Amazon is launched by Jeff Bezos.
         Trial dial-up systems such as AOL and CompuServe launch.
        Charging is introduced for domain names.
        Search technology companies such as Alta Vista, Infoseek, Excite and
        Metacrawler rapidly appear.
1996 Yahoo! is launched on the stock exchange and shares are up nearly 300% on
        first day.
1997 MP3.com is founded.
        The term “search engine optimisation” is used for the first time in a forum.
1998 XML is released to enable compatibility between different computer systems.
        Google founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
1999 Peter Merholz coins the word “blog”.
2000 AOL and Time-Warner announce they are merging.
         Pay per Click campaigns are introduced for top ten search rankings.
         Google AdWords launches, charging for adverts on a CPM basis.

2002 UK online monthly consumer shopping breaks through the £1 billion barrier.
         Google AdWords charges on a PPC basis instead of CPM.
2003 eBay topples Amazon as the most visited UK website.
2004 CD-WOW loses court case and rights to source cheaper CDs outside EU,
          undermining the global concept of the Internet.
         Facebook launches from the Harvard dorm room of Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin
         Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.
2005 Iceland leads the world with broadband penetration: 26.7 inhabitants per 100
         have broadband compared with 15.9 per 100 in the UK.
         Launch of YouTube.
         Google buys Android Inc.
2006 Google buys YouTube for $1.6 billion.
         Facebook membership opens to anyone.
         Twitter launches.
         Technorati notes that a blog is created every second of every day.
         Time Magazine names “You” as person of the year, due to online activity.
2007 Facebook launches Facebook Ads.
         Apple launches the iPhone.
         Google Phone, with the Android operating system, launches.
2008 Firefox 3.0 launches with over 8 million downloads in 24 hours.
         Groupon launches, to become the fastest growing company of all time.
         Google Chrome, a browser, launches.
         Apple launches the App Store.
2009 Facebook adds “like” feature.
         Foursquare launches.
2010 Facebook reaches 500 million users.
        24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
        Launch of Google Instant.
        Google launches Nexus One.
        Internet usage tops 1 966 514 816 worldwide.
2011 200 million tweets are sent daily on Twitter - about one billion a week.
       Social media is credited with a crucial role in political movements in Egypt,
       Tunisia and Libya.
       Apple’s App Store downloads top 10 billion.
       Google + launches.

E -Marketing Introduction

E-marketing

E-marketing refers to the use of the Internet and digital media capabilities to help sell your products or services. These digital technologies are a valuable addition to traditional marketing approaches regardless of the size and type of your business. E-marketing is also referred to as Internet marketing (i-marketing), online marketing or web-marketing.

As with conventional marketing, e-marketing is creating a strategy that helps businesses deliver the right messages and product/services to the right audience. It consists of all activities and processes with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers. What has changed is its wider scope and options compared to conventional marketing methods.

E-marketing is deemed to be broad in scope, because it not only refers to marketing and promotions over the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. E-marketing also embraces the management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) and several other business management functions.

E-marketing joins creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design, development, advertising and sales. It includes the use of a website in combination with online promotional techniques such as search engine marketing (SEM), social medial marketing, interactive online ads, online directories, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, viral marketing and so on. The digital technologies used as delivery and communication mediums within the scope of e-marketing include: 

• Internet media such as websites and e-mail
• Digital media such as wireless, mobile, cable and satellite. 

WEB 2.0 

There are many technical definitions for WEB 2.0 but a simple definition can be as follows

Web 1.0 : Connects people to computer networks
Web 2.0 :  Connects people with machines and also with each other in social networks

The web pages that are generated by internet users are called User generated Media

Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information on-line. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users.

  Changes influencing E- Marketing:

• power shift from sellers to buyers
• search engines are now reputation engines
• connections are critical
• high broadband adoption at home
• marketing investments are moving on-line
• market and media fragmentation
• appliance convergence
• increasing wireless networks

Following are some of the benefits of e-marketing :

• Wider prospect reach – the internet has become part of everyone’s life. So for whatever products you offer, there is already an existing market on the World Wide Web. With e-marketing, it allows you to find new markets and potentially compete worldwide with only a small investment.
  
• Cost-effective approach – A properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can  reach target customers at a much lower cost compared to traditional marketing methods.
  
• Reduction in costs through automation and use of electronic media – e-marketing presents a strong business case in cost savings, particularly in the areas of transactional costs, customer service, digital media channels, print and distribution.
  
• 24/7 marketing - with a website  customers can find out about  products and make purchases even if physical  premises are closed or not available.
  
• Personalised one-on-one marketing - e-marketing allows to reach people who want to know about various products and services instantly. For example, many people take mobile phones and PDAs wherever they go. By combining this with personalised e-marketing, you can create very influential and targeted campaigns.
  
• Increased interactivity – e-marketing allows us to create interactive campaigns using music, graphics and videos. Through two-way communications, interactive games or quizzes, we can engage the audience and give them greater involvement and control over their web experience.
  
• Increased ability to track results – e-marketing makes it easier to measure how effective the campaigns are. It allows the marketer to obtain detailed information about customers' responses to  advertising, through the use of methods such as pay per click or pay per action, etc. 

E-marketing Objectives

 

E-marketing objectives define what you want to achieve through your e-marketing campaign. They set the reasons why your business wants to go online and allow you to estimate and monitor the progress of your online marketing activities. They also provide an incentive to focus on critical areas and formulate strategies to help achieve intended objectives.
Different businesses may develop different e-marketing objectives depending on their individual circumstances. A useful framework for developing effective e-marketing objectives is the five S’s framework, which includes:

1. Sell –  using the internet to sell products and services
2. Serve – using the internet to serve customers
3. Speak – using the internet to communicate with  customers (both existing and potential)
4. Save – using the internet to save/ reduce cost
5. Sizzle – using the internet to build brand identity

 When setting your e-marketing objectives, you need to make sure that they are:

• Specific – specify what is to be achieved
• Measurable – expressed in measurable terms such as key performance indicators, outcomes, numbers, percentage, dollars, etc. 
• Action-oriented – state which actions need to be taken and who will take them
• Realistic – achievable with the resources available
• Time Specific – establish specified time frames.

 Examples of some typical e-marketing objectives could be:

• To achieve 20% online sales within the first year of launching online marketing campaigns.
• To increase online sales for all products by 15% .
• To grow email coverage to 50% of the current customer base by the end of next year.
• To reduce the annual cost of direct marketing by 20% through e-mail marketing.

E- Marketing Challenges & Opportunities - Introduction Case

Introduction  DELL - HELLCASE

On June 21, 2005, a “citizen journalist” by the name of Jeff Jarvis posted a single negative blog-post about his experience with one of the top computer and technology companies in the world- Dell Inc.  His rant was lengthy, and unforgivable, with sentences like, “DELL SUCKS. DELL LIES. Put that in your Google and smoke it, Dell,” and it attracted computer buyers from around the globe.
dell - hell on-line rant this is the cause for the on-line outrage

Dell had built a strong reputation during the 1990′s and early 21st century, however, the experience of one customer would serve as a catalyst to Dell for over two years.  Dell Inc. became known instead as, “Dell Hell,” and the bold opinion of Jarvis resulted in a domino effect that caused bad critiques and drastic declines in Dell’s success.  Their business, their brand, was under attack, and getting this smudge off their record was no easy task.

The Reason

Dell set themselves up for this situation by failing to relate to the very people who keep them in business. The first reason to get serious about your business’s on-line presence is so you have a better grasp on what your customers are thinking.  Billions of dollars in marketing efforts are spent each year on studies, surveys, and behaviour patterns to find out what people want and how to appeal to consumers.  But don’t think just because there aren’t conversations about your brand on-line that this is a good thing.  In fact, if you aren’t a topic of conversation on-line, this can be an even bigger warning: no one is talking about you because no one cares or knows about you.

The Output

Dell learned to listen and “they ended up seeing the value in listening to and ceding control to customers. They reached out to bloggers; they blogged; they found ways to listen to and follow the advice of their customers. They joined the conversation. That’s all we asked.” In fact, Dell ended up earning the forgiveness and respect of Jarvis back again.

Jarvis posted this on his blog on October 18, 2007, explaining in detail exactly what he saw in Dell that caused his change of heart:

Dell realized that engaging in the conversation wasn’t just a way to stop blogging customers like me from harming the brand. We, the customers, bring them great value besides our money: We alert them to problem. We will tell them what products we want. We share our knowledge about their products. We help fellow customers solve problems. We will sell their products. But this happens only if you have a decent product and service and only if you listen to us.

dell learns to listen  The response from jarvis after two years

this incident caused Dell to create this website  dedicated to listen to customers  idea storm by dell

Now if you see this whole incident it is a perfect example of companies underestimating new forms of interaction and how it can affect you. This in fact highlights the need for marketing in newer avenues with vigour.