More Aliens Invited in Facebook

In 2012, facebook directs more and more strategic moves by entering into IPO, acquiring Apps Support companies.

For Sharing Photos, mark Zuckerberg has acquired Instagram and employees of Instagram has come under the shades of Facebook. With the Instagram team joining Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is very much optimistic that growth would be more mutually beneficial giving greater experience for the facebook users in sharing photos in their domain.

Another big strategic move by facebook is buying Tagtile, which will give Facebook more expertise about how to approach businesses and convince them to use a valuable service for engaging with their customers. If it can tie its online offers to Tagtile’s service, it will give businesses a way to redeem those offers in-store and show them how effective their offers were. But I’m not sure how much of the acquisition is really about the TagTile box long term. NFC phones are coming, and you can already establish a user’s location inside a store and reward them with QR codes. Foursquare is doing this through check-ins and Shopkick is as well through its dedicated audio hardware.

Thums Up replaces Akshay Kumar with a group of four led by Telegu superstar Mahesh Babu

Akshay Kumar has been endorsing Thums Up for eight years on a trot; he's now 45. Some 30% of Thums Up consumers are women. Andhra Pradesh is Thums Up's biggest market in India.

And some 47% of Indians are under 20. Throw all these seemingly disparate data points into a bottle, shake it vigorously and pronto: you have a brand new fizzy recipe, not for Thums Up itself but for its advertising and promotion.

As brand consultant Harish Bijoor says: "Brand-endorsers age. Brands don't. Brands have two choices. They can either age with their brand endorsers, or they could change their brand endorsers." The marketers of Thums Up are clearly in no mood for the former.

So out goes the ageing Bollywood macho man. Replacing him is a group of four highenergy dudes - one of whom is a woman - and led by Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu, who has been the brand's face down south for five years now.

Suddenly, all those bulleted points at the beginning of this article don't seem so incongruent any more. Akshay and his adrenalin-pumping action on building tops and down sharp cliffs to grab a bottle of his favourite soft drink is passe.

Thums Up has to appeal to - with apologies to Pepsi - Youngistan, the girls included. And if AP is where Thums Up sells the most, Mahesh Babu fits the role to a tee.

It all began a year ago, when Thums Up and Leo Burnett, the creative agency for the brand, brainstormed on the next big idea for the cola brand that would ensure it stayed ahead of the global big boys, Pepsi and Coke. Spools of research tape revealed GenY's upbeat mood and aspirations.

These range from a guy from Gwalior who, after studying engineering, decided to start his own business; to another middle-class Joe from Jhansi who wanted to take up dancing as a profession despite family opposition. Led by such insights, the new summer-campaign of Thums Up released recently moves on from the one-man army that was Akshay Kumar to a story of four friends and their version of daredevilry amidst the highrises of Bangkok.

Justifying the shift, Srinivas Murthy, director - marketing (flavours and Thums Up), elaborates : "The new code of masculinity for Thums Up - real, contemporary and more social - is borne out of their (GenY's ) affinity to do things in groups and lead from the front."

The earlier positioning of the muscular caveman guy who was larger than life is less relevant now, adds Murthy. To put it simply, the attempt is to continue with the position of masculine icon albeit in a more refreshed avatar.

Says K V Sridhar, national creative director, Leo Burnett: "The youth of today belong to a generation that likes to explore , and does it with a level of confidence. They are not looking at becoming the leaders of the world but are happy within their group.

Pepsi Co Extending the Line

With the season started, Pepsi Co has started introducing new Lines and adding SKU lines to the existing brand, say for example Mirinda has been released in 3 flavours - orange , orange masala etc.,

And also other food products like lays and all being released with different flavors endorsed with the cricket players as the cricket fever has started.

In addition with extending Mirinda, 7 up is also planned to give brand endorsement to nimbooz in the name of 7 up nimboo which will directly take the brand credit of 7 up.

With the season in phase, many variations is expected with fresh juices into market from pepsico.

Facebook takes on Groupon

Facebook, the social network, is trialling a new "daily deals" service, putting it into direct competition with early category leaders like Groupon and LivingSocial.

The Web 2.0 pioneer's latest initiative expands on the geo-location tools developed for the company's Places platform, and augments the promotional offers provided through Facebook Deals.

Daily deals will initially run in Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.

Visitors can view a dedicated page detailing all the current discounts, money-off schemes and other enticements pursued by marketers, accessing this section of Facebook via a link from their personal homepage.

Similar to Google's search engine, Facebook may have found a way to successfully monetise the long tail of small enterprises, by promising a large audience on a comparatively modest budget.

"Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find deals in the coming weeks," a Facebook statement said.

Emily White, Facebook's director of local operations, further suggested Facebook's social focus could now extend offline.

"You won't get your legs waxed with friends," she said. "You dine out, you go to concerts, you do outdoor activities. We want to make sure those experiences are maximised."

Alongside its in-house sales unit, Facebook is working with nine firms, like restaurant booking specialist Open Table, family-orientated social shopping site Plum District and high-end equivalent Gilt City, to source offers.

Zozi, which prioritises holidays and adventurous travel trips, is another member of this group.

"We are very excited about the Facebook partnership. They are an extraordinarily strong company with the largest number of page views on the web," said TJ Sassani, Zozi's chief executive.

"That's helpful when we talk to merchants."

One problem to be overcome by Facebook, and the whole sector, is the fact many organisations, particularly smaller businesses, cannot match demand, and therefore actually make a loss.

"There are some downsides to having a huge audience," said Greg Sterling, a senior analyst at Opus Research.

"For national advertisers, it's double-edged as well. The minute something appears that's any good, people will be all over that."

Lou Kerner, a Wedbush Securities analyst, argued such a strategy pushes Facebook to the forefront of an increasingly intense online battle.

"Local is the last frontier that the internet has not conquered, and everyone is going after it with a vengeance," said Kerner.

"This news is just kind of an evolutionary moment in Facebook's drive to be a major player in local."

Consultancy BIA/Kelsey predicted US consumer expenditure on "deal a day" goods and services would rise 35.1% a year in the near term, climbing from $873m in 2010 to $1.2bn in 2011, and hitting $3.9bn by 2015.

Based on an optimistic reading - where the amount of featured cities, registered users, average transactions and price beat current forecasts - BIA/Kelsey anticipated the 2015 total might reach $6.1bn.

"We expect to see some shift in local media spending resulting from the adoption of deal a day by local advertisers," said Peter Krasilovsky, BIA/Kelsey's vp and program director, Marketplaces.

"We also believe that deal a day doesn't exist in a vacuum. It will become a part of the growing deals and offers landscape."

To gain a meaningful foothold, Facebook must take on LivingSocial, which has previously received investment from Amazon, and Groupon, thought to be considering an initial public offering.

"Some investors may get spooked," said Sterling. "In the old days, everybody worried about Google entering every segment of the market. And now Facebook is another concern."

P&G pushes big ideas

Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods giant, is using "store-back branding" to ensure the big ideas behind its products transfer from advertising and marketing to the retail arena.

Speaking with business title Forbes, Phil Duncan, P&G's global design officer, suggested adopting an integrated model is vital.

More specifically, while successful ad campaigns - such as the "Thanks, Mom" umbrella effort for last year's Winter Olympics and "Smell Like a Man, Man" on behalf of Old Spice - are key, they cannot function in isolation.

"We make sure we can translate the big idea, or ideal, in a signature visual or with a few simple words. For example, the idea driving the Crest brand is a 'healthy, beautiful smile,'" said Duncan.

This process necessarily begins at the early stages of innovation, as the owner of Tide and Pampers attempts to guarantee its offerings stand out as buyers reach the "moment of truth".

"We tell our teams that as they develop the idea to think about the most difficult branding arena first, which is, of course, the shopping arena," Duncan added.

"We call this store-back branding. We use the store-back branding approach first so we can evaluate whether the big idea will work where and when the consumer is in an actual purchasing state of mind."

P&G now regularly employs digital simulations of supermarkets both to identify the optimal display level to catch the attention of customers, and in focus groups assessing packaging.

"Often the in-store execution, whether it's the packaging or point of sale material, is the only marketing the consumer sees," Duncan argued.

"We need to make sure our communication of the core brand idea is not only reinforced in the store, but that it can stand alone in the store."

Such "retail branding" initiatives must bolster the central product proposition, and can also be deployed alongside alternative channels to help shoppers acquire an overall picture.

"Because packaging is essential in retail activation, we use our online efforts to showcase the packaging within a store environment," said Duncan.

While all of these factors can exert an influence on the ultimate decisions made by customers, this outcome is most likely to occur if marketers emphasise a "single idea", Duncan continued.

In an example of this, the latest creative concept supporting P&G's Gain detergent range is called "Love at first sniff."

This notion has been leveraged to inform various promotional strategies, indicating the cross-media possibilities that result from imbuing a brand with a clear, consistent message.

"Through our television and video ventures we encourage people to literally take the cap off the Gain bottle and smell the detergent," said Duncan.

"Once they actually smell it they're more apt to buy it."

Effectively adapting to the retail space thus offers firms major advantages against competitors by building on the awareness and perceptions created by communications utilising other mediums.

"We've essentially shortened the path to purchase. The objective for all marketers is to use the in-store experience to reinforce the brand benefits as communicated in other channels," Duncan concluded.