Digital Marketing

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION Marketers are learning how regular contacting affects the building and sustaining of customer relationships. The dominant logic of marketing is shifting from the exchange of goods toward service, interactivity, connectivity and ongoing relationships. Technological innovations, new channels, and changing media environments facilitate this shift and the question of how firms should interact with their customers is gaining in importance, especially as firms consider the cost differences between traditional communications media, such as television and sales forces, and electronic media, such as the Web and email. The cost efficiency and interactivity of digital channels facilitate ongoing dialogue between the enterprise and the customer. Marketers can now be in touch with their customers on a more frequent basis and increase the level of personalization and interactivity with low or non-excessive cost. Being frequently in touch with customers should help achieve positive effects on customer loyalty. For instance, customers can be offered additional information and brand communication when buying products or when using them. This can include newsletters, maintenance and repurchase reminders, help for keeping their products up-to-date, and tools for interacting with friends and peers. For being regularly in touch with customers is also one of the central ideas of CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Recent studies have found that the relational information processes of CRM (regular communication, information collection, etc.) play a vital role in enhancing an organization’s customer relationship performance. Furthermore, the use of CRM applications is positively associated with improved customer knowledge and improved customer satisfaction. While email is substantially cheaper to send than conventional direct mail, research also suggests that in some cases it can deliver significantly better response rates. From a company point of view, digital channels offer cost efficient opportunities for a brand to keep frequently in touch with customers which not only improves marketing performance, but particularly customer loyalty. With such prospects in mind, it is not surprising that the use of digital channels in marketing is becoming an essential part of strategy in many companies. Car manufacturers

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use the Internet and email to launch new models, as well as engaging their customers into interaction on their websites and with email. BMW uses a mobile portal to distinguish itself from its competitors, providing customers pictures of new models, games, and service. Nike targets the youth segment by launching a digital spring fashion show, which allows consumers to use the brand’s latest fashion catalogue online to create their own looks and photos, and a virtual identity. Similarly Puma had launched an event in Mumbai where in they gave people the opportunity to design their own shoes and the winners would actually get their designs on a custom pair of Puma Shoe. Canon iMage Gateway helps consumers share their digital photos with friends online. Such interaction and low cost communication with customers increases the effectiveness compared with traditional direct marketing efforts that publishers have used to win orders. Interactivity in digital media offers customers better options to search for information, work as initiators, and get help. Interactivity also offers customers new ways to spend time with a brand, like playing games, participating in an activity on a website, or learning about the product or service they are using. This is what Canon pursues with iMage Gateway service, which can lead to improved customer involvement and satisfaction. Interactivity also provides marketers with more information about customer needs, preferences and interests. Interactive and virtual brand communities, like those built by Harley Davidson and Ducati, bring consumers with specific interests together from different geographic areas to strengthen their brand loyalty. McDonald’s uses online channel to reinforce brand messages and relationships. They have focused their online community building on communities for children, such as the Happy Meal website with educative and entertaining games. L´Oréal’s CRM initiative aims to enhance personal communications with customers by analytical profiling, segmentation, database build and design, and bolstered data gathering. This way L´Oréal seeks to increase the return on investment and capitalize on their customer insight for the long term. Digital channels also contain opportunities and tools for personalization. By using digital channels, customers can actively create or shape the form of communication, for example by stating their channel and content preferences. Likewise, marketers can create more personal communication based on customers’ behavior and preferences, which can increase the effectiveness of communication by making customers, perceive it as more relevant and interesting, and wanting to maintain a relationship with the marketer. Relationship marketing (RM), customer relationship management (CRM), as well as brand management and service literature emphasize the importance of building and managing 2 |Page

customer relationships, and offer useful models. Also consumer behavior, advertising, direct marketing, and e-marketing literature give insight into how digital channels can be used to enhance customer loyalty. Before we move into any more details lets understand what digital marketing is all about and how it plays a major role in affecting the customer loyalty.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW For a better understanding on the topic I had pulled data from different books, reports, articles. These helped me in understanding the different views of different authors over the same subject which is Digital Marketing (DM) and how it affects customer loyalty. Below mentioned are few such materials which helped me in this project.

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A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing - Jacques Bughin, Jonathan

Doogan, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik The book speaks about how the power of word-of-mouth marketing has grown in the last few years. Digital revolution has amplified and accelerated a customer’s reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. 

Four ways to get more value from digital marketing - David C. Edelman The book speaks about how the companies have started shifting their focus towards

customers. Through his study he found that the most successful digital marketers focus on managing four core sources of value. First, they coordinate their activities to engage the consumer throughout an increasingly digital purchase journey. Second, they harness interest in their brands by syndicating content that empowers the consumer to build his or her own marketing identity and, in the process, to serve as a brand ambassador. Third, they recognize the need to think like a large-scale multimedia publisher as they manage a staggering increase in the content they create to support products, segments, channels, and promotions. Finally, these marketers strategically plot how to gather and use the plethora of digital data now available. 

The New Rules of Marketing and PR(Second Edition) –David Meerman Scott The book speaks about how powerful the new channels of communication are and also how marketers should use these channels for maximum benefit to the organization. The

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new channels being Social Media Websites, Blogs, New Releases, Online video and Viral Marketing. It also speaks about how companies can instantly get into existing markets, connect with customers quickly, and create products that grow ones business. 

What Google would do? - Jeff Jarvis The book speaks about how to reverse-engineer your companies working. It also speaks about the success of the fastest growing company in the history of the world i.e. Google, the one company that truly understands how to succeed in the internet age, and then take those lessons and apply them to a number of industries, companies, and institutions.

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Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? - Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg. Evolving from the assumption that customers have always behaved more like cats than dogs, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark examines how emerging media have undermined the effectiveness of prevailing mass marketing models and created an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to redefine how they communicate with customers by leveraging the power of increasingly interconnected media channels.

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CHAPTER 3

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY Despite the growing use of digital channels in marketing and the evolving research around it, there are few theories to explain the mechanism of how Digital Marketing Communication or DMC works from a relationship marketing perspective, especially for enhancing customer loyalty. Hence, in this project I would mainly be focusing on understanding:   

How is Digital Marketing different from the traditional marketing? The communication functions of digital marketing. Do Social Networks provide the trigger to improve the potency of advertising across all forms of media?

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Study the Growth of internet usage and e-commerce

Study how Advertising on the Internet helps and how to gain Trust of the customers by using various Internet Marketing Techniques. How Digital Marketing helps enhance the loyalty of the customers towards a particular brand or product.

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CHAPTER 4

DIGITAL MARKETING The use of digital channels to strengthen customer loyalty has received surprisingly little attention, despite the obvious opportunities for using these channels to keep in touch and serve customers cost-effectively. It seems like the concept of “digital marketing” has been used more operationally, while the theoretical understanding and comprehensive approach of how and why to use different digital channels are still developing. The various medias used that promote Digital Marketing are :

Digital marketing is a term that has been around for quite some time, but hasn’t been very well defined, encompassing things like banner advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click. Yet, this is too narrow of a definition. “Digital marketing uses the Internet and information technology to extend and improve traditional marketing functions.” This is a broad definition, concerning all of the traditional 4 P’s, and both customer acquisition and retention. Other terms like “interactive marketing and “e-marketing” are close to digital marketing, but neither of them are defined very precisely. Advertising Guru’s Coviello, Milley and Marcolin have defined digital marketing as “using the Internet and other interactive technologies to create and mediate dialogue 7 |Page

between the firm and identified customers.” They also consider digital marketing as a subset of e-commerce. In their view, more than creating discrete transactions, digital marketing is focused on managing continuous IT-enabled relationships with customers by creating dialogue and interactivity. The world of digital media is changing at a phenomenal pace. Its constantly evolving technologies, and the way people are using them, are transforming not just how we access our information, but how we interact and communicate with one another on a global scale. It’s also changing the way we choose and buy our products and services. People are embracing digital technology to communicate in ways that would have been inconceivable just a few short years ago. The global online population was around 1.3 billion at the end of 2007 it’s now more than 1.8 billion as of December 2010. In the developed world internet access is becoming practically everywhere, and the widespread availability of always-on broadband connections means that people are now going online daily to do everything from checking their bank statements, to playing games, to shopping for their groceries. Hence companies have started realizing the importance of Digital Marketing. At its heart, digital marketing centers around the Internet, which have become both a communication vehicle and a very powerful marketing medium. The Internet can be used both to “push” a message to someone through email, IM, and voice broadcast, as well to “pull” content serving a banner Ad and Pay Per Click search terms. Digital marketing, therefore, can be thought of as the combination of push and pull Internet technologies to execute marketing campaigns. People are far more likely to 'Google' their needs as a first port of call than go anywhere else for information. And the business person always has to go where the people go. The differences between traditional methods and digital marketing really lie in effectuality, ease and cost. The costs are certainly lower with digital marketing and the effects of online promotions are more far-reaching and have a higher impact. Being regularly in touch with your customers in one of the central ideas of every business these days and recent studies have shown that Digital Marketing more specifically the Internet plays a vital role in doing so. As the times are changing people are shifting from the traditional forms of marketing to digital marketing. Not because they weren’t effective or successful but because they do not offer instant feedback and report. Sure, some people may respond to a call to action from an advertisement in one of these mediums but there is no way to know the exact number of 8 |Page

people who saw or heard it. Such data is collected long after the initial ad impression is made. Yes, convergence has made television at bit more interactive, with devices such as TiVo able to record viewer statistics like those for Web sites, but there is still a long way to go. With digital marketing, however, we’re already there.

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4.1. 7 P’S OF DIGITAL MARKETING The four P's - Product, Price, Place and Promotion have long been associated with marketing, but things have changed on the Internet. So along with a change in the nature of the four P’s there are three new P’s which are relevant to digital marketing. The Product on the Internet is usually quite different as the user experiences it electronically, in the form of text, images and multimedia. Physical goods are usually presented in the form of a detailed online catalogue that the customer can browse through. Technology allows the user to virtually touch and feel the product on the Internet - rotate it, zoom in or zoom out and even visualize the product in different configurations and combination. The example of the above can be seen at dell.com where the company offers the user to virtually feel every aspect of their product before they go into a buy decision. Several automobile companies also create a virtual model of their vehicles be it a car or a motorcycle. They give their customers the liberty to view the entire model up close by zooming in and out of the different parts. To be able to attract the customers and retain them, the company will have to provide new and distinct products that force the net users to purchase and come back for more. The Price has been drastically changed over the Internet. Also it gives the buyers information about multiple sellers selling the same product. It leads to best possible deal for the buyers in terms of price. Sites like eBay and Naaptol.com allows the users to view the same product being sold by different people at different prices and then lets the user themselves decide which deal they want to go for. The Place revolves around setting up of a marketing channel to reach the customer. Internet serves as a direct marketing channel that allows the producer to reach the customer directly. The elimination of the intermediate channel allows the producer to pass the reduced distribution cost to the customer in the form of discounts.

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Dell Computers have used this strategy very effectively and hence they have been able to reduce their prices of their laptops drastically and reaped huge profits. Promotion is extremely necessary to entice the customer to its website, as there are currently more than one billion web pages. Promoting a website includes both online and offline strategies. Online strategies include search engine optimization, banner ads, multiple points of entry, viral marketing, strategic partnership and affiliate marketing. Presently, the cyberspace is already cluttered with thousands of sites probably selling similar products. For the customers to know of the Company’s existence and to garner information on the kind of products or services that the company is offering, promotion has to be carried out. There can be traded links or banner advertisements for the same. Also the traditional mediums like print, outdoor advertising and television can be used to spread awareness. Email campaigns and spamming the Chat rooms on almost every server has been exploited to the maximum for the cause of promoting their website. The Presentation of the online business needs to have an easy to use navigation. The look and the feel of the web site should be based on corporate logos and standards. About 80% of the people read only 20% of the web page. Therefore, the web page should not be cluttered with a lot of information. Also, simple but powerful navigational aids on all web pages like search engines make it easy for customer to find their way around. The principle of K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid) is the most important factor that has to be considered while presenting the online business. The Processes Customer supports needs to be integrated into the online web site. A sales service that will be able to answer the questions of their customers fast and in a reliable manner is necessary. To further enhance after sales service, customers must be able to find out about their order status after the sale has been made. For e.g. FedEx (www.fedex.com), the overnight Courier Company allows its customers to keep track of the parcel and they are well informed about the present whereabouts of their package. Similar variants have been used by the Government of India for its Speed post and Registered Ad services where you can keep a track of your post by entering the code that has been issued to you. Personalization Using the latest technology in software be it PHP, Flash or Photoshop it is possible to customize the entire web site for every single user, without any additional 11 | P a g e

costs. The mass customization allows the company to create web pages products and services that suit the requirement of the user. A customized web page does not only include the preferred layout of the customer but also a pre selection of goods the customer may be interested in. For e.g. Yahoo! (www.yahoo.co.in) entered the Indian cyberspace and started its personalized services. A registered user of Yahoo can now personalize the front page with all the information he needs. He can read the news of the world, add a tax calculator, see the weather forecasts of his city and listen to his favorite songs and all this simultaneously.

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4.2 CHANGING PATTERNS OF MARKETING – TRADITIONAL MARKETING V/S INTERNET MARKETING Marketing over the years more so recently has started being used interchangeably with advertising. Now since the explosion of the internet; advertising paradigms have been constantly changing. The first Web advertisement was placed on the Hot Wired web site in October 1994. AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Volvo, Club Med, ZIMA were the first to try it out and the Internet advertising has come a long way since then. Here, I would attempt to compare Internet Advertising with Traditional Advertising: Traditional Advertising: 

Traditional advertising is static.

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Space is a problem, as regards size of the banners etc.

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The proportion of advertising to editorial is high sometimes

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Does not evoke immediate action.

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Response to the action is not immediate.

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Advertisements are passively received.

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Advertising does not always target a much focused audience. Internet Advertising:

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It is dynamic with multimedia- supporting text and graphics video sound all together.

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Space is not a restricting factor

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A web page would be 91% editorial and 9% advertising. Invokes immediate action as you at-least need to click on the ad. First response is immediate as when the user clicks, the person is directed to other web page

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with more details. The user has high attention level and concentration while using the net, and hence they notice

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the ad. (please refer the chapter) This can be much more focused.

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Advertisements catch users when they are on the lookout for something. For e.g. The search is for travel on a search engine there are ads of travel agents on the net. Thus we see that advertising is changing and so are the rules for advertising on the internet. So while designing or formulating any advertising strategy for a brand on the internet a manager has to take in to account factors like: -

1.

The Internet has made a huge impact on advertising. Companies should be careful as regards joining the IT bandwagon. They should not advertise on the net just to project themselves as a techno savvy company or maybe because their competitor is doing the same thing. It should be a well-planned campaign full of specific information and attention catching.

2.

The 'net' charges are on the higher side (though there has been a steep decrease in the rates in the last few months). Hence people would be wary of the fact that ads consume a lot of online web time and hence they avoid clicking on average ads. Therefore, advertises should be designed in such a fashion that they attract attention and induce people to click on the net.

3.

One more thing would be to generate 'search' specific advertising. This would mean that if I give a search for books on the search engine, the ads displayed would be related to the books.

4.

Generally, people perceive the ads to be time consuming and full of unwanted information. Care should be taken to design the ads in such a way that the information they provide or the hyperlinks they provide to a site gives adequate and specific information.

5.

The ads and the subsequent information on the web site should be constantly updated and highlighted in the ads and thus induce repeated clicks on the add

6.

Last but not the least; the ads should be designed so as to attract attention of maximum number of people and inducing them to click, failing to do so the advertiser ends up defeating his own purpose.

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4.3. GROWTH OF INTERNET USAGE AND E-COMMERCE IMRB recently came out with a research where they said that India’s internet community grew by 42% in 2009 from a year ago, spurred by a rash of cheaper devices and affordable broadband plans that helped sidestep snags such as buttoned up PC sales and a shrinking spread of cyber cafes. The country’s total number of internet users grew to 71 million last year, according to an annual survey by market research agency IMRB and Internet and Mobile Association of India, available exclusively with ET. The survey has traced users who have used the internet at some point in time, an indication of the number of Indians who have gone online at least one in a life time.

Four out of five computer users and English-speaking persons in urban India are now hooked to the Web, said the survey that was conducted among 19,000 households, 68,000 individuals and 500 cyber cafes. “The growth came from reduced prices of cheap access devices like netbooks that are now available at around Rs 20, 000,” says Internet and Mobile Association of India president Subho Ray. The study also says India’s active user base — comprising people who access the internet at least once a month — grew by 18% to 51 million from a year earlier. However, the survey also offers salient data that are a counter against getting carried away by the other 15 | P a g e

glowing trends. The number of users who possess an internet connection remains strikingly low at 14.6 million. Also, internet penetration is still measly compared to that of countries such as the US. China has over 360 million internet users followed followed by US at 227 million and Japan at 95 million. Similarly, internet additions continued to be eclipsed by mobile subscriber additions that were ticking at 10 million a month last year. Users who access internet via mobile phones remains a meager 2 million due to slow download speeds. Here, users who access online WAP portals pre-burnt into SIM cards are counted out in the survey Still, in many households, internet usage rose 70% to 15.7 hours a week from a year earlier, a pointer to the growing popularity of social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. “Proper laws governing cyber cafe industry will promote further adoption of internet in the country,” says Amrita Choudhary, Director at Cyber Cafes Association of India. According to the research report of Goldman Sachs, India has emerged as the second largest Internet market in Asia after China in 2009. It estimates that Indian Internet Users will increase by 130% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) at the end of 2012. Also the figures of the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are expected to increase by leaps and bounds and March 2012 sees at least 70 private international gateways. As per preliminary findings of the NASSCOM survey, the total volume of E-commerce transactions in India was about Rs.225 crore in the year 2007-2009. Out of this volume, about Rs.32 crore were contributed by retail Internet or Business-to-Consumer transactions, and about Rs.188 crore were contributed by Business-to-Business transactions. The survey also revealed that EBusiness transactions in India are expected to exceed Rs.300 crore during 2010-2012. Out of this, about Rs.50 crore could comprise of retail transactions. For Business-to-Business transactions, Indian industries are expected to reach online penetration of 12% by 2012 and 25% by 2015. 4.3.1 Effectiveness of the Net in Reaching Out to the Masses The reach of Internet may not yet be as wide as that of other mass media, but given its unique advantages, it is undoubtedly the communication medium of the future. Marketers around the world have from time to time tried to reach their target audiences through various media. Scientific and technological advances have and will continue to create newer media to

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improve communication, and marketers will try to use the same to effectively address their audiences. Internet is one of the latest to join the list of such media inventions.

4.3.2 Internet Fame with the Indian Audiences Let us first take a quick look at the audience that this medium is trying to reach. The top 8 metros of the country, the scope of the Internet as a medium to reach out to a large number of people is presently limited. However, some of these limitations can be addressed. 

Internet is available in regional languages also. Even today this medium is largely confined to only those who are literate in English. Various initiatives of companies like ITC and HLL like E-choupal and i-Shakti have given a considerable boost to vernacular usage of internet

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Internet is accessible though other media also and not only through telephone lines. In the current scenario, the usage of internet can happen through telephone lines, broadband and cable.

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Government policies are aimed at broadening and strengthening the infrastructure required for Internet accessibility. There could be several other modes to increase the reach of the Internet. However, with the current limitations, the projections on Internet usage appear to be unhurried. 4.3.3 Current Media usage habits of the Indian audiences TV, print and cinema have penetrated the most. Internet in the media terms is expected to make an impact and show its true calibre, but is yet not taken as a serious medium. Does that mean that Internet is not an effective tool for reaching out to people? Or is it likely to work very well under certain conditions? To understand this better, let us compare Internet and other traditional media, first from the customer’s point of view. Current media options serve two broad benefits to the customer:

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The reach or popularity of any media is related to 1. The extent of benefits perceived to be delivered 2. The cost of acquisition of the media itself In short, the reach is related to the net value perceived by the customer about that particular medium. Internet has brought with it a very high degree of control to the media user. Not only are there a plethora of sites catering to every imaginable need, there is also a high degree of flexibility in what the user is able to do. All of this makes Internet a highly interactive media but also an expensive one. If the internet is treated and used exactly like any other medium, it is unlikely to yield major benefits to the marketer. Its effectiveness is dependent not only on the target audience one is talking to, but also largely on the ability of the marketer to make use of the real advantages of the Net like interactivity, flexibility, ability to monitor and the like. Next, one can also evaluate Internet as a media from the marketers’ point of view by way of a similar classification. If evaluation as per the above classification is done, the Internet does not appear to be a very advantageous option either in terms of reach or in terms of cost-effectiveness. Internet however has various other advantages over the traditional media which cannot be neglected. These stem mainly from the ability of this medium to allow a far more focused targeting as compared to other media. To quickly summarize the advantages of the Internet as seen from the point of view of the user as well as the marketer: To the user: 

Internet gives more control in choosing content. It offers customization of the content, the way the user wants to view it. It offers a variety of options for information and entertainment. It offers a wide range to choose from for the user.

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It offers tremendous convenience to the user not only in delivery of information, but also in allowing him to transact — often in a seamless manner.

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The best example of giving control of content is the My Yahoo!! Service offered by the Internet giant, Yahoo Inc. It gives the user the choice of content for various topics ranging from news to stock options to entertainment to sports and just about everything. To the marketer:

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The Internet offers several options to a marketer trying to target a particular community

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It serves not only as a channel of information, but also of product distribution

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It offers a highly interactive medium that sometimes (e.g. chats, forums, VoIP) is almost equal to one-to-one interaction with the audience.

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It offers a higher level of identification of the user to the marketer.

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It allows the marketer to actually link his spends to action, and pay only on action This action could be a click on the banner or even product purchased or just a banner impression or per 1000 impressions. In this ability Internet is, in fact, unlike any other media. Given the payment options and high interactivity, the Internet offers a medium for high level of experimentation at a low cost. E.g. One can change the whole look of the advertisement within hours and increase the effectiveness of the communication on the Internet. Imagine doing the same with a television advertisement. Therefore, though the Internet with its present limitations may not be able to match other media in actually reaching out to large numbers of people, the benefits of this highly customizable and interactive medium can be used effectively to target niche audiences. 4.3.4 Overview of the Indian Internet Users Indian internet users use the internet for 3.5 hours a week, clocking an average of 26 minutes a day, according to a study by IMRB International and Internet and Mobile

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Association of India (IAMAI). The study shows that women spend lesser time (25 minutes) online as compared to men during weekdays and the time spent online on weekends is lower for both men (22 minutes) and women (23 minutes) It was also found that activity on social networking sites increases gradually during the week reaching a peak on Fridays, increasing by over 12 per cent. The study also highlighted that while bank sites are accessed by more people during weekdays, those who accessed bank sites on the weekends spent a much longer time on these sites. These are the initial results of the new Internet Audience Measurement (IAM) system soon to be launched by IMRB International in association with IAMAI. According to IMRB International, the initiative goes beyond technical jargons, and measures internet use in a currency that is commonly understood and accepted in India. 4.3.5 Advertising options available on the Internet The Internet offers a variety of options for the marketer to advertise her/his products/brands. These include 1. Banner ads and their variations 2. E-mailers and their variations 3. Sponsorships 4. Search Engines 5. Affiliate marketing In India, banners still remain the most popular option. However, wider options are now available to the marketer which, even at the cost of being intrusive, serves to enhance the visibility and effectiveness of the banner Given the highly interactive nature of the Internet, and the also fact that unlike other media it offers a higher level of identification of the user, simple direct marketing tools such as email can also be used more effectively.

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Then again there are sponsorships, which can be effectively used to increase brand salience and even change image. The other tool on the web with enormous potential, and which has possibly not been used to its optimal level yet by marketers in India, is the search engine. Marketers can own either popular keywords or make use of meta-tags (these are similar to the keywords which the search engines uses to catalogue various websites/products) in order to go higher on the search lists. The above is used by the search engine giant Google.com and it has reaped profits so much so that it is viewed as a threat by the computer giant Microsoft Inc.

4.4 UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMERS Now to be able to use the seven P’s effectively in order to achieve the predefined goals of any organization it is imperative to understand the customers. Customization will only be truly effective if we understand our customers and their true needs. Before adapting marketing practices to the Internet, the marketer needs to understand the characteristics of the online customers. The Net users can be classified into five categories depending upon their intention of using the Internet. The five categories of users are – 

Directed Information Seekers: They require specific, timely and relevant information about the products and services being offered.

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Undirected Information Seekers: These users require something interesting and useful. Something that can give them an edge, advantage, insight or even a pleasant surprise.

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Bargain Hunters: They are of two kinds. One who look for free items on the internet and other who are seeking better deals, higher discounts etc.

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Entertainment Seekers: they see the Web as an entertainment medium of vast breath and potential and want to explore the medium before the mass gets there.

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Directed Buyers: They want to buy something - now. They are sure what they require and just log on to the Web to purchase the item.

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4.4.1 The Evolving Value Propositions The value propositions of goods and services offered in the physical world differ pointedly from those in the digital world. The ultimate aim of the universal marketer is to provide a complete end-to-end consumer experience---right from the promise to satisfy his need to its delivery. But the physical world offers only “Point Solutions” which is basically a solution of his needs in terms of functional benefits. A credit card, for instance, allows consumers to satisfy the immediate necessity of setting a transaction. But today’s consumers are also looking for process and relationship benefit---book referrals at no extra cost or email reminders. The physical world is not able to deliver these benefits because of gaps in time, space and memory. The web, on the other hand provides all of these and more (“reverse marketing, for example, where consumers seek out vendors rather than the other way around”) by giving the company the ownership and control over all interactions with the consumer. 4.4.2 The Evolving Risk Profiles The on-line customer is not a fickle customer, but he is a risky proposition nevertheless. This is because all his online experience will influence consumer perceptions about the brand. If a consumer buys a product from a retailer and is involved in an unhappy purchase experience at the store, he will punish the store. But if the same experience were to occur to him at the company’s web site, the consequences would be disastrous for the company if he were to share his experience though different user communities using a combination of chat rooms and electronic mails.

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4.5. BRAND COMMUNICATION Brands and branding are of great importance in today's marketing. As a key component of branding, brand communication determines whether a brand is successfully established and eventually turns a profit. Conventional forms of brand communication via advertising, and public relations have achieved great success in the past, but their effectiveness is declining dramatically in today’s more customer-dominated business climate. The Latest Brandz global brand study by MilwardBrown shows that Google is suddenly worth more than $66,434,000 as compared to Coco Cola which is worth $44,134,000. # 1 2 3 4 5 6

Brand Google GE Microsoft Coca Cola China Mobile Marlboro

Brand Value($m) Brand Value Change (%) 66,434 77% 61,880 11% 54,951 -11% 44,134 7% 41,124 5% 39,166 2% Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9662780/Brand-Communication

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Why this sudden change in the position for brand leaders? It is seen that this sudden change in brand value has only happened due to newer techniques being used to improve brand communication which are Personalized Brand Communication, Interactive Brand Communication and Other moderating variables. 4.5.1 Personalized Brand Communication Personalization is expected to be an element that can work to boost customer loyalty by creating more personal, interesting and relevant brand communication, and better service. In the literature different terms are used when talking about personalization. Kotler’s idea of personalization is that the ultimate level of segmentation leads to segment of one, customized marketing, or one-to-one marketing. The goal is to differentiate customers individually and customize marketing messages to each customer’s needs. This is also the basic idea of personalized brand communication. For example, the timing of brand communication could be different for different customers, based on their purchase frequency, need for assistance, etc. Or if a marketer would know at what time and where a customer would like to have his/her coffee, a local café could send a personalized offer to the customer’s mobile phone. This would comply with the recent theory, which suggests that advertising is most effective when it occurs close to the time when consumers are ready to buy. In addition, mobile location services could be used to detect the customer being near his favorite café and he would automatically receive an invitation to visit. Thus, the marketing communication would have the potential for a stronger effect on boosting sales and customer loyalty because of using personalization. For example, Tesco, the UK’s largest grocer, has over 8 million different message configurations, and offers tailored mailings to specific audiences. The rational for personalization is already recognized in earlier studies on advertising and consumers’ information processing, which show that when the personal relevance of a message is high, people spend more time processing it, generate more product-relevant thoughts, and spontaneously draws more conclusions about the product. Thus, when customers perceive brand communication relevant and the substance is meaningful the messages are likely to be more effective. Personalization can also be initiated by the customer, for example by selecting interesting topics for a newsletter. This way personalization also builds continuance 24 | P a g e

commitment by creating customer exit barriers. For example, the time devoted by the customer to give information or personalize his own service may feel like an investment, a great effort that is not easy to do all over again with another service provider. There is support that personalization in digital channels is important to customers. A study sponsored by the CRM vendor Kana found that almost 75% of respondents cited personalization as a major contributor to their most satisfying purchasing experience, online or offline. Personalization capabilities in this study included self-service, personalized voice or email interactions, the ability to track purchases and requests, and knowledgeable customer service representatives who are educated in the customer's history. Personalization can also improve response rates for brand communication. Research has found that response rates could be increased by 62% if the email’s design and content are personalized. Another example, eBay, was able to increase average revenue per recipient by 187% by finding the optimal timing for email messages, i.e. sending them to consumers on the same day of the week and time of day as they had originally opted-in. They could therefore get their messages through the clutter, and were able to reach people when they had more time to shop. With optimal timing customers may perceive conditional value. Situational factors can also be regarded as triggers, factors or events that change the basis of a relationship. Situational triggers alter customers’ evaluations of an offering based on changes in their lives or in something affecting their lives (e.g. demographic changes in the family, changes in job situations, and changes in the economic situations) Personalized brand communication can be used to make messages more relevant to specific situations, and thus create extra value for customers (e.g. children’s health insurance offer when a child is born) Marketers can create more personal brand communication based on customers’ behavior and preferences, which can increase the effectiveness of brand communication by making customers, perceive it as more relevant and interesting, and hence want to maintain their relationship with the marketer. This way the substance of messages is meaningful to customers and they are likely to perceive additional value from communication. In addition to personalizing the substance and timing of messages, channels of brand communication are also important. Customers’ channel preferences and perceived channel benefits vary individually, and change according to information search and purchasing stages. Therefore it is critical to identify the customers’ current and future channel preferences and benefits and provide an optimal channel combination in order to make brand 25 | P a g e

communication more effective and more valuable to customers. However, customers’ preferences may sometimes conflict with company’s business view. For example, a bank customer may favor personal service at the counter whereas self-service technologies such as teller machines, interactive voice response or e-banking facilities are much more costefficient for the bank. To conclude, there are three main elements that can be personalized in brand communication: substance, timing, and channels. 

Personalizing the substance of brand communication - Positively moderates its effects on

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both behavioural and attitudinal customer loyalty Personalizing the timing of brand communication - Positively moderates its effects on both behavioural and attitudinal customer loyalty

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Personalizing the channels of brand communication - Positively moderates its effects on both behavioral and attitudinal customer loyalty 4.5.2 Interactive Brand Communication The digital environment offers cost effective and convenient opportunities to convert communication from one-way into interactive and give customers access to information and communication. When customers can easily search and find desired services or support, and filter out the information they need, they see this as a convenience and as better service. In effect, companies increasingly offer customers interactive tools to make better decisions about financial issues, purchases, health care, and other complex issues. Interactive functions enable a search process that can quickly locate a desired product or service, thereby replacing dependence on detailed customer memory. Interactivity also increases the amount of information that can be presented to a customer. This can increase brand knowledge and thereby customer loyalty. Interactive functions also offer consumers new ways to spend time with a brand. They no longer need to go to stores to see the products and to talk with sales people. Over the Internet, consumers can access a vast amount of product information, view 3D-images and test different product variations, as well as play games and interact with other brand users. For example, Nokia has invented an annual game event. Nokia Game is an interactive multimedia adventure provided by Nokia since 1999. In Nokia Game, players are called upon to collect and act on a series of clues, delivered via a host of channels – including the Internet, newspapers, magazines, radio, email, mobile phone and TV. All media are closely linked to one another. The player that interprets all information best and excels in the online 26 | P a g e

games wins. Gaming keeps consumers interacting with the Nokia brand for 10 to 25 days. In 2003, the game was running in 35 countries at the same time, and there were over 6 million visitors to its home page (www.nokiagame.com). In 2005 Nokia’s new online and multichannel game 20Lives entertained almost 750,000 registered users from 21 countries (www.nokia.com/20lives). Marketers are encouraged to create brand communities in which consumers share ideas and feelings without geographic and social barriers, because customers belonging to them are more loyal than others; they are less apt to switch brands and more motivated to provide feedback. Active community members can also be considered as opinion leaders who can be used to test new ideas and concepts, and hopefully to spread positive information by word of mouth. Recommendations are very effective, as in some cases they can double sales or response rate views. Under this view interactivity is realized when messages are contingent upon previous messages. Key elements include responsiveness, two-way communication, reciprocity, exchange, and participation. In this process, planned communication and dialogue potentially lead to valueenhancing interactions. The firm is not always the party that starts the interaction or dialogue; instead customers often act as initiators. Customers’ activity may have positive effects on their purchases and loyalty. Interactive communication enables marketers and customers to connect in ongoing learning relationships, where individual customers teach the company more and more about their preferences and needs. The more customers teach the company the better it becomes at providing what they want. Relationship performance can be improved through relationship learning. For instance, visitors to a website learn to be more efficient at using that website the more often they use it, which increases the probability of purchase. It has also been found that the higher the bidirectional communication between the customer and supplier, the higher the purchase frequency. Interactivity is no longer entirely based on personal communication from the marketer’s side. Digital channels like email make it easier and less expensive to carry out life cycle automation than in the offline world. Life cycle automation times each message so that each recipient gets a message at time most appropriate for them. Also, the state of customer relationship and changes in it could be used as interaction triggers. Lifecycle automation has the potential to increase interaction between customers and companies, as sending the

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messages is not dependent on the employees’ memory and response times. This can create more value for customers. 4.5.3 Other Moderating Variables Although personalization and interactivity are the main variables that moderate brand communication, there are other moderating variables which affect customer loyalty through digital marketing.

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Customer Characteristics All customers are not equally responsive to DMC or willing to engage in it. It is useful for a company to know which customers have the most future potential, and which are more likely worth the investments in extensive communication and relationship building. It is seen that customers have four primary needs and motivations, which drive their behavior and relationship orientation. Best-deal customers seek for lowest price, and there is no value in a relationship for them. Novelty seekers are innovators, whose driving force is curiosity. They seek variety and take risks. Involvement customers want to belong, to be recognized and to be regularly in touch with the marketer. Certainty customers avoid risks and do not want any surprises. They want continuity but do not actively seek a relationship with the supplier. Although this classification is a broad generalization, it would be useful in a similar way to examine what motivates different customers to engage in a relationship with a marketer in the digital environment. Recently there was a survey done on different Internet users which explored consumer attitudes, Internet experiences, demographics, and personality traits that may potentially influence consumers’ online purchasing, and the type of purchases they are willing to make.

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In the study it was found that gender (male), high income, and opinion leadership increase the odds for online purchases. Furthermore, it was found that consumers’ web purchasing may not be considerably enhanced by their mere exposure to Internet advertising. Instead, online consumers’ buying behavior may be rooted in their self-generated interests with the subjects of the web before they surf the online marketplace. It is important to examine what drives consumer attitudes towards using online and other technology-based services. They identified ease of use, performance, and fun to have direct effects on attitudes toward using the services, and self-efficacy (level of confidence to use technology- based self-service), inherent novelty seeking, need for interaction (with a service employee), self-consciousness, perceived waiting time, and social anxiety (discomfort through perceived crowding) to be moderating variables. Similarly, consumers’ tendency to engage in web communities and other relational activities varies a lot, depending on their communal, exchange, and relationship orientation traits. These findings suggest that in order to enhance customer loyalty marketers should develop and promote different factors of DMC depending on customer characteristics. 

Involvement Different products and services can be differently suitable for digital marketing, and the opportunities for relationship building can also be diverse. Involvement concerns an ongoing commitment on the part of the consumer with regard to thoughts, feelings, and behavioral responses to a product. Product involvement affects consumer’s relationship proneness. For example, cosmetics, cars and clothes are high involvement products to many consumers. In the case of low-involvement products, brand choice is less connected with the consumer’s lifestyle and variety seeking is increased; it is therefore easier to attract consumers to switch brands with promotions. Involvement affects the way in which customers process marketing communication. When involvement is high, consumers devote more attention to advertisements, exert greater cognitive effort to understand them, and focus more attention on product-related information. A consumer’s involvement also affects how different media evoke responses. Retrieval media (print and Internet) are more effective under high product involvement, whereas delivery media (television) are better suited for influencing uninvolved consumers. On the web, those with high product involvement are more interactive with product-related content 29 | P a g e

than those with low involvement. When involvement is high, buyers are more likely to value customization of the marketing mix, interaction with the company representatives, and an ongoing relationship with the firm. We expect that when involvement is high, the effects of DMC on customer loyalty are stronger. 

Relationship Customer relationships tend to be very heterogeneous; they differ in duration, strength, interactivity, and in many other aspects. Customer relationships also change dynamically over time, and are shaped by different stages and incidents. There are a number of factors embedded in the relationship between a marketer or a brand and the customer that have an impact on how DMC affects loyalty.

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Brand Familiarity and Loyalty Brand familiarity reflects the extent of a consumer’s direct and indirect experience with a brand, familiar and unfamiliar brands differing in terms of the knowledge regarding the brand that a consumer has stored in memory. It has been found that communication effectiveness depends on the prior familiarity of the brand: repetition wears out is postponed when the brand is familiar to the consumer. Communication from a trusted source is also expected to influence attitudes more strongly and feel more personal than from unfamiliar sources which may be disputed and thus not have as less impact on attitudes. In effect, it is seen that DMC works better with customers that are already familiar and/or loyal with the brand.

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Switching Costs Over a series of transactions, customers build switching costs through the development of personal relationship and the accumulation of firm-specific knowledge and sunk costs. Customers will be more likely to engage in relational behaviors when they perceive that the monetary and nonmonetary switching costs are high. Product categories where switching costs are high include insurance, child care, and financial services.

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As a term, switching cost is related to perceived risk. Consumers are more brand loyal and willing to engage in long-term relationships with products that they perceive as high-risk. Risks can be functional, physical, financial, social, psychological or time-based. High-risk product categories include airlines, clothing, medicines, and financial services. Consequently, products and services with high risks are also in many cases those where the switching costs are high. Switching costs are likely to moderate the effects of digital marketing communication on customer loyalty. For example, if financial and relational switching costs are low, regular marketing communication could have little or no effect on customer loyalty. An example of this is the fierce price competition between mobile phone operators, which has made differentiation among them difficult and lowered the switching costs perceived by consumers.

4.6. DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS There are many different technologies to facilitate your Internet marketing strategy. Some of the most common and effective tools are: Search Engines: Search engines are one of the most popular means of finding web sites, second only to following links on web pages. Search engines help people find relevant information on the Internet. Major search engines maintain huge databases of web sites that users can search by typing in keywords or phrases.

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Advertise your message. Web directories/search engines are information, gateways that have high traffic and are good for displaying advertisement banners. They are used to find Internet information and for this reason, appeal to broad target groups. E-zines (Online magazines): These publications are focused on specific topics and may be a way to reach a target audience interested in that subject. Some companies have gathered the e-mail addresses of potential customers and used these lists to send out product information specific to client interests. E-mail: Ethical methods of gathering e-mail addresses are through on-line registration built into your corporate Web sites, or requests for information forms that request submission to your opt-in lists. An alternative is to purchase lists of customer e-mail addresses indexed by special interests from a private company such as 'Postmaster Direct'. Online customers are becoming increasingly selective about their relationships, the brands they trust, and what they consider relevant. While most marketers are aware of privacy issues and the risks of Spam, there is still need for improvement. Email marketing campaign management is still fairly unsophisticated even at the largest of organizations. Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Marketing enables you to increase online sales by promoting your products and services through a network of Affiliate sites on a payment-byresults basis. It also provides the opportunity to generate additional revenue by exploiting your site's own content to promote the products and services of other online Merchants. 32 | P a g e

A Merchant recruits content sites to partner with them as Affiliates in exchange for commissions. A common third party provider such as Commission Junction can be used. The Merchant provides their advertising banners and links to their Affiliates and assigns a commission for each click-through to their site, subscription to their service, or purchase of their products that is generated from those links. Affiliates place the tracking code for these ads and links on their Web sites. This allows click through's to be tracked online and commissions to be calculated. If a product or service is purchased, the customer pays the Merchant directly and the Affiliate is paid a commission for that transaction. Banner Advertising: Banner advertising can play an extremely important role within your website strategy. One can use banner advertising as a means of promoting its own products and services, raising awareness, or as a way of generating revenue by selling advertising space on your own website. There are currently two widely recognized methods of purchasing banner advertising. The rates for these are usually quoted on a cost per thousand basis or (CPM). The rates you pay can vary tremendously as there is currently no standard price model. Pay-Per-Impression: This method of purchasing banner advertising is based on a charge for the number of times someone sees your banner. There are no guarantees as to how many visitors will come to your site as a result of seeing your banner; you are simply paying for the number of times your banner is displayed.

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Pay-Per-Visitor: This method of purchasing banner advertising is based on a charge for the number of times someone visits your site as a result of clicking on your banner. This is a better method of purchasing banner advertising as you are only paying for results, although expect to pay a premium. The revenue model of the Internet giant google.com has its very own service which offers certain share of the profit that it makes by the pay-per-click function that a website generates from its Adsense codes. The revenue model is known as Google Adsense and almost every successful website uses this model to make profits. The Google Adsense ads can be seen on websites like Times of India, Moneycontrol.com, ManagementParadise.com and a lot many other reputed websites. Rich Media Advertising: Looking for ways to make online advertising more compelling, and hopefully thereby more acceptable, marketers have increasingly been turning to streaming advertising. In effect another kind of rich media advertising, streaming advertising comes in two basic forms. First, it can either be part of a streaming audio or video program on the web. With many people now listening to web radio or watching web broadcasts, this makes perfect sense. After all, everyone is accustomed to getting commercials on their TV or car radio. The other channel for streaming advertising is essentially an infomercial. Consumers can download a streaming clip for a product or service from a marketer's website. Public Forums: These are often community-based or interest-based sites that allow visitors to communicate with one another. An opportunity for small businesses to reach to their intended target group via these forums is by posting messages or by sponsoring such a forum. E-mail based forums appeal to a wider audience due to the greater use of this application over Web-based forums. Web based forums are advantageous for their superior display of advertising images/messages.

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4.7. ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET: EMERGING ISSUES Internet might be a catchy advertising medium. But, there are quite a few issues that need to be sorted out. Advertising on the Net is slowly catching on. In developed economies, advertising on the Net accounts for anything between 10 and 15 per cent of the total advertising cake. Fine, how large is online advertising in India? Various estimates put the size of online advertising in India between Rs 40 crore and Rs 50 crore, which is much less than 10 per cent of the total advertising cake. Why is online advertising so small in India? Why aren't the advertisers putting their money on Net advertising? For instance, Hindustan Lever’s advertising budget is upwards of Rs 700 crore 35 | P a g e

and out of this; the company spends not more than Rs 50 lakhs on online advertising. Is this because Net penetration in India is not deeper? Yes, to an extent. 4.7.1 Slow motion However, this might not be the case for long. For, initiatives are on to increase the number of Internet users. It is estimated that Internet subscribers will increase to around 50 million by 2012 from the current figure of 10 million. Not only that, a drive is on to make Internet more affordable. For instance, the Reliance group is planning to set up 7,800 cyber kiosks in Madhya Pradesh and BSES is planning to put up 1,000 cyber kiosks in Bombay. And the UK-based WorldTel, in partnership with the Reliance group, is working at building 1,000 community Internet centers in Tamil Nadu. There is a question here, however. If numbers are the only factor, then how is that Net advertising has picked up in Hong Kong, which boasts of 7.5 million Net users compared to some 10 million in India. So, there are other reasons why online advertising is going through a slow motion in India. Apurva Purohit, media director with the Mumbai-based FCB-Ulka Advertising says, "While television has two people meter services, Tam (IMRB) and Intam (ORG-MARG), there is no possible mechanism to enable working out optimized schedules on the basis of ad viewer ship rather than programme viewership." Only such a mechanism can help to track ad viewership patterns much more accurately and monitor television advertisements effectively. The very reason that ad viewership in online advertising are not monitored and audited is making quite a few corporate advertisers go slow in latching on to the Internet medium. Says B Venkataramanan, group media manager of the Mumbai-based Hindustan Lever: "I am sceptical about the kind of figures most dot-coms come up with. So, we will be going about online advertising in a planned way." All these might become things of the past with quite a few studies on online advertising in the pipeline. For instance, AC Nielsen is looking at rating Net advertisers and ORG-MARG is planning to kick off its research on Net advertising. 36 | P a g e

4.7.2 The cost factor Many advertisers are not aware of the benefits online advertising can offer over the traditional media. What needs to be done? The advertising industry should take efforts to educate potential Net advertisers about the advantages of advertising on the Net. Some steps have already been taken in this direction. For instance, advertising networks such as Media2Net, Rightserve and Mediaturf are doing their bid to fuel online advertising in India. Rightserve of Hughes Software is said to be spending nearly Rs two crore on seminars, advertisements and road shows for creating awareness about the online advertising concept. There is another reason why advertising on the Net has not really picked up. And that is the perception that advertising on the Net is expensive. Is this perception right? Compare the cost of a banner advertisement on the Net with a television commercial. Though the cost of an advertising campaign on the Net could be anywhere between Rs 15,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh, advertising in the press or television will cost upwards of Rs 50 lakh. Does this not make advertising on the Net cheap? No. For, whether advertising on the Net is cost-effective or not depends on the value per advertising Rupee. That means, it is essential to express advertising costs on the Net in terms of cost per thousand (CPT). Here is what Amardeep Singh, a Mumbai-based media consultant with Mediaturf.com, has to say: "A thirty- second television commercial will cost between Rs 250 and Rs 300 per thousand, while a ten-second banner on a reputed site such as Rediff.com will cost as much as Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per thousand." The implication: value per Rupee spent on advertising is higher in the case of television. That is efficiency is higher in the case of television advertising, while in absolute terms advertising costs are lower as far as the Net is concerned. Fine, but how are rates fixed for advertising on the Net? It is a difficult poser considering the fact that rates for advertising on the Net have no rationale behind them. For instance, Rediff.com just adopted the international rate charged by Yahoo.com. Other websites in India just took the Rediff.com's rate as a benchmark and adjusted their rates

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accordingly. But, the issue here is this: since the number of Net users in India is limited now, these Indian rates are not justified. What are the emerging trends as far as cost of online advertising is concerned? Currently, rates for a simple banner advertisement on the Net needs to come down. Already, Mediaturf is working in this direction. It wants to bring down the cost of Net advertising at least by 50 per cent. Mediaturf believes that when the rates come down, volumes should go up. 4.7.3 The wastage factor There are other reasons why advertising on the Net is not currently seen by advertisers as cost-effective. One of them is the quality of desired responses. In many cases, sums spent on advertising on the Net have not been deployed properly. There are instances where advertisements have just been lifted and put on the banner. Though there are many early adapters in India, there is a big gap between these adapters and the mainstream users. And most advertisers have too small budgets for advertising on the Net to be bothered about wastages. There could be wastages in online advertising, but one should not forget that interactivity is the hallmark of online advertising and here it is possible to target the audience by demography, psychography and technography. So, advertising agencies need to take into account these factors while developing strategies. But, wastages can be eliminated and online advertising can be made more effective through various strategies. Some of them are: strategic tie-ups, sponsorships and banner exchanges. For instance, the FMCG major Colgate-Palmolive has entered into a strategic tie-up with the Calcutta-based FirstNet Solutions' portal Yantram.com for promoting its Fresh Energy Gel toothpaste on the portal. And Coca-Cola has appointed Hungama.com, an Indian portal for promotions and contests, as its e-marketing partner. Coca-Cola has gone ahead and launched a new Web promotion dubbed Maaza Puzzle to promote its popular brand Maaza and has also kicked off a series of other e-promotions. 4.7.4 Targeting imperatives 38 | P a g e

Accurate targeting is another strategy to eliminate wastages in online advertising. Currently, such targeting based on parameters such as geographic location and search keywords is possible. Moreover, targeted advertisements based on the profile of users are also possible. To make this possible, it is essential to have lists such as registered e-mail users and such lists can offer profiles of users. But the question is how many sites in India have a large base of registered users? Another way wastages can be eliminated is by having advertisements based on the content of the site. Consider the example of an advertisement from Toyota Motor Sales on the weather site Intellicast.com. This website for outdoor recreation enthusiasts has been running a campaign for Toyota Motor Sales and this campaign depends on the weather. If the weather is sunny, the solara is shown with the top down, and if it is cloudy or raining, the top is shown up. How many such ads are visible on Indian websites? Profiling tools too should help in cutting down wastages in online advertising. Mediaturf has gone a step further by beta-testing an advertisement in a bid to gauge a user’s behaviour, the number of times he views an advertisement and his preferences in terms of content when he is surfing on a site. Other waste-eliminating strategies for online advertising are: contextual selling using demographic and psychographic data to match ads with content that fits and dynamic customization or click stream analysis that helps to modify advertisements in real-time. 4.7.5 Online Constraints As efforts to eliminate wastages in online advertising take off; efforts are also needed to eliminate the attendant constraints. In online advertising, one can stream audio and video technologies together with faster bandwidths and delivery channels in a bid to present the same idea with the use of sound, music and visual imagery and make interactions with the banner possible. Despite the bandwidth constraint, companies do have such ads for their products online. Anyway, with massive investments coming in bandwidth, there could be a glut soon.

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Sure, India has an advantage in online advertising, thanks to the fact that online advertising depends so much on technology and software programming. But, effective online advertising calls for skills in consumer and relationship management. And with the right use of digital marketing companies cannot just have monetary benefits but can also enjoy lasting customer loyalty.

4.8. BUILDING TRUST Bringing the element of trust to your digital value proposition, though leads to deep, trusting relationships is not always easy. It comes through a step-by-step process in which the consumer and marketer exchange value. Each time the consumer volunteers some personal information, the marketer rewards the consumer with a more personalized service. This mutual give-and-take eventually leads to an advanced collaboration based on trust. The research has identified four stages of trust building: 1. Attraction At the first stage, the consumer browses the site and even makes a transaction. No real relationship exists between the marketer and the consumer, and none may be necessary. The 40 | P a g e

best strategy is to provide the consumer with information, without demanding any in return. At first blush, this may seem like an imbalance between what marketers give and what they get back. But what the consumer is giving the marketer is something quite valuable: time and attention, along with a view of how the site is traversed. 2. User-Driven Personalization At the second stage, consumers start shaping Web pages to their specific tastes. For example, CDnow customers can personalize their home pages with favourite artists and wish lists. The company shows that it is willing to deliver some value to the consumer before gaining financially. Some websites allow their users to not just track stocks but also get customized sports news, weather information, daily horoscopes and even cartoons. 3. Marketer-Driven Personalization In the third stage, marketers begin using insights provided by consumers to beam information back to them. Thus, cdnow uses its knowledge of consumers—developed at the earlier stages of trust—to suggest products they might like which consumers then rate as either on- or off-target. As the process continues, cdnow learns consumers’ preferences and zeroes in on what they really like. It is worth emphasizing that marketers should rein in their urge to make immediate use of data and personalization technologies. This approach takes patience, a trait lacking at many marketing organizations. Too often they bombard consumers with promotional offers as soon as they get their hands on an e-mail address. A gradual approach would be best, as nothing aggravates many internet users more than unsolicited email. 4. Trust-Based Collaboration At the final stage, the marketer and the consumer work together closely. The consumer gives the marketer access to the most sensitive personal information and in turn gains customized experiences and consultative problem-solving assistance. Very few on-line marketers have reached this level of trust with their consumers. The pace of value exchange varies by industry and situation. For example, mortgage shoppers may provide financial information in their very first interaction if they need a quick answer. In other situations, the process moves more slowly. And because costs rise as 41 | P a g e

marketers go up the trust staircase, they must decide just how far they need to go to create the most profitable relationships. Trust building at a basic level may be enough for some marketers, particularly if greater trust does not bring greater spending by consumers. Only by sustaining trust can marketers expect to establish enduring relationships with consumers, and it is by keeping a central focus on that idea that marketers build a value exchange that delivers consistent and progressive mutual benefits. With these four building blocks of trust in place, marketers should be able to chart a course for building great customer relationships.

4.9. SOCIAL NETWORKING’S NEW GLOBAL FOOTPRINT 4.9.1.The question to be asked over here is that “How social networks are creating a potentially transformational change in consumer behavior ” Social Networking has been the global consumer phenomenon of 2008. Two-thirds of the world’s Internet population1 visit a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet time. ‘Member Communities’2 has overtaken personal Email to become the world’s fourth most popular online sector after search, portals and PC software applications. The story is consistent across the world, ‘Member Communities’ has taken a foothold in every major market from 50% of the online population in Switzerland and Germany to 80% in Brazil. Facebook has become the largest player on the

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global stage, dominant in many countries, yet localised offerings have won the day in many others. However, the growth in popularity of social networks – and the resultant broadening audience – is only half the story. The staggering increase in the amount of time people are spending on these sites is changing the way people spend their time online and has ramifications for how people behave, share and interact within their normal daily lives. Consequently, the global media and advertising industries are faced with new challenges around the opportunities and risks this new consumer medium creates. Social networks provide competition to traditional publishers for consumer attention and at the same time, facilitate new ways for publishers and advertisers to connect with their audiences. So how do they need to change their strategies accordingly? Consumer engagement within social networks has the potential to change the way consumers are targeted, not just through the digital medium, but through all forms of traditional media. Whilst a few billion dollars of ad revenue can’t be wrong, the prevailing wisdom is that the current level of advertising activity on social networks isn’t consummate with the size – and highly engaged levels – of the audience. The social networks and advertising industry haven’t quite yet found that magic formula to make this happen. The industry is faced with a real ‘Catch-22’ situation. Part of Facebook’s extraordinary subscriber growth is due to a clean design with little advertising clutter; consequently, the audience growth hasn’t been accompanied by a similar surge in advertising revenue. On the other hand, MySpace’s more customizable entertainment and content-oriented offering – carrying more advertising – has been more successful at attracting advertising revenue, yet MySpace’s audience is flattening. The industry will be watching very closely at which one of these fundamental differences in strategy will prove the most successful in attracting advertising revenue in 2009. 4.9.2.Social network and blogging sites are now the fourth most popular activity on the Internet ‘Member Communities’ now reach over 5 percentage points more of the Internet population than it did a year ago – a growth rate more than twice that of any of the other four largest sectors. The strongest growth has come in Germany where the sector now reaches 51% of Germans online compared to 39% a year ago – an actual increase of over 12 percentage points. Large growth has also occurred in the UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland – the sector

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reaching 10% percentage points more of the online population in each of these countries than it did a year ago.

Fig. Member Community growth twice that of any of the other five most popular sectors

Fig. Increase in Online Reach 4.9.3.Time spent on social network and blogging sites growing at over 3x the rate of overall Internet growth

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This increase in popularity is only half the story when it comes to the social networking phenomenon – the time people spend on these networks is also increasing dramatically. The total amount spent online globally increased by 18% between December 2007 and December 2008. In the same period, however, the amount of time spent on ‘Member Community’ sites rose by 63% to 45 billion minutes; and on Facebook by a massive 566% – from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion. Facebook’s time is so high due to being the ninth most popular brand online and having the highest average time per person (three hours 10 minutes) amongst the 75 most popular brands online worldwide. 4.9.4.Consequently, social networks and blogs are eating into the share of time held by other sectors Because time spent on social networks is growing at a dramatically faster rate than the Internet average, social networks are gaining a larger share of all Internet time. In most of the countries monitored the share of time accounted for by ‘Member Communities’ has more than doubled. In Switzerland, for example, the share of time has tripled from 3% to 9.3%. A year ago ‘Member Communities’ accounted for one in every 15 online minutes globally – now it accounts for one in every 11. In Brazil alone, ‘Member Communities’ accounts for almost one in every four minutes. In the UK they now account for one in every six minutes (up from every 13 minutes a year ago) and in Italy one in every seven (up from one in 14 a year ago). Like social networking, the Video and Online Games sectors have also seen strong increases in share of time and it seems that the biggest casualty of these increases has been Instant Messaging – another ‘communications’ sector that has struggled to attract ad revenues consistent with the level of online time it accounts for. As the online industry matures and the value of online real-estate is increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, a significant shift in advertising revenue from ‘traditional’ online media towards social media could be realised – if the successful ad model can be found.

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Fig. Total Time spent on Facebook increased by 566 %

Fig. Increase in Share of time accounted for by Member Community Websites 4.9.5.The social network audience is becoming more encompassing As an entity moves from being niche to a major player the composition, or make-up, of its audience changes. Social networks online started out amongst the younger audience. However, as the networks have become more mainstream with the passage of time, it isn’t surprising to see the audience becoming broader and older. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook, whose successful formula opened up the possibilities of social networking to a much wider audience. 46 | P a g e

In terms of sheer audience numbers, for example, the greatest growth for Facebook has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million). Furthermore, Facebook has added almost twice as many 50-64 year olds visitors (+13.6 million) than it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million). Consequently, people under 18 years old are making up less of the social network and blogging audience, whereas the 50+ age group are accounting for more of the audience. Facebook started out as a service for university students but now almost one third of its global audience is aged 35-49 years of age and almost one quarter is over 50 years old. In the UK, for example, if the average month-on-month audience changes over the last six months were to continue; by mid-June 2009 there would be as many 35-49 year olds on Facebook as 18-34 year olds. The changing audience offers advertisers the opportunity to use social networks as a vehicle for targeting all demographic groups. In Italy, brands such as Maserati – traditionally marketed to an older audience – now have fan pages on Facebook.

Fig. Facebook’s growth across age 4.9.6.Challenges facing advertisers on social networks To realise this opportunity to use social networks as a vehicle for targeting all demographic groups, challenges have to be overcome. The current level of advertising activity on social networks isn’t consummate with the size – and highly engaged levels – of the audience.

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A key reason why advertising on social networks hasn’t been as successful as on the more ‘traditional’ publishers is because social networkers serve a dual role as both the suppliers and consumers of content. In the traditional model they simply consume the content supplied by the publisher. Therefore, members have a greater sense of ‘ownership’ around the personal content they provide and are less inclined to accept advertising around it. A well used analogy is that advertising on a social network is like gate-crashing a party. This is compounded by the fact the content supplied by the social network members is also of a highly personal nature. This provides another “Catch-22” situation for the social networks in that personal data is potentially one of their most valuable assets – highly attractive to advertisers – yet it provides a major obstacle in generating revenue. As the site becomes more attractive to advertisers it becomes less appealing to members who see highly-targeted ads as invading privacy. A Nielsen Online survey in Australia showed that the challenge could be getting more difficult because consumers are actually growing less tolerant to advertising on social media. The study showed that in December 2008, 38% of Australians online considered advertising on social networking sites to be an intrusion compared to 29% the year before. Furthermore, those who didn’t mind being served ads if they were relevant to their interests dropped slightly from 51% to 47%. 4.9.7.What can advertisers and their agencies do? 

Work with the networks more closely

The social networks and advertisers have compatible interests. The networks need advertisers to monetise their audience effectively. Advertisers need the networks as they have to go where consumers are spending more of their time. Both parties will reap significant rewards if they can discover the magic recipe for advertising successfully on social networks – but they will need to work together to develop it. New approaches to the ad model are required for this challenging and complex arena It will take time to work out the magic formula for successfully advertising in social networks. The diversity and personalised nature of the environment means standard ad models – such as contextual search and standard unit sizes – won’t cut it. Different approaches across ad units and ad inventory will have to be tried, involving a trial and error mindset. As mentioned

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above, a closer relationship between the social networks and advertisers is required to make this happen. 

Advertising must be a conversation rather than a push model

The point that social network members are co-creators of content and, therefore, have a sense of ownership within the site means advertising should be about participating in a relevant conversation with consumers rather than simply pushing ads on them. After all, it is social media. Advertising shouldn’t be about interrupting or invading the social network experience, it should be part of this conversation.



The tone of advertising must be more authentic

Messaging within advertising should come from a more authentic, candid and humble perspective. Social media has, once again, brought word of mouth to the fore as the ultimate form of advertising at a time when traditional advertising is suffering from a major lack of trust. Nielsen’s analysis of social media conversations back in 2007 and again in December 2008 showed that ‘false’ was the term most closely associated with “advertising”. Social media has fanned the flames of consumer distrust about advertisers claims. However, at the same time social media has provided the motive, opportunity and means for advertisers to engage consumers in a more open and honest way. 

Advertising should be about adding value

Social networks are ultimately about friendships, where members add value to each other’s lives through interaction. Therefore, advertising should follow the same philosophy of adding value through interaction and consultation. Fan sites or sponsored groups are, perhaps, one of the more successful examples of social network marketing that touch on the principles of interactivity and adding value – such as offers, sneak previews and co-creation of content. Social networks lend themselves greatly to generating brand affinity for advertisers through these fan sites, which, in essence, act as advertising. For example, at the time of writing, Facebook’s “Addicted to Starbucks” group has almost 124,000 members, over 670 discussion topics and almost 10,000 wall posts. However, the challenge for advertisers is that discussions within these groups won’t necessarily align itself with the brand-designed messaging. Much like a friendship, marketing on social networks requires continual 49 | P a g e

investment – in terms of time and effort as opposed to financial – to be of value to both parties.

4.9.8.Generating Ad Revenue – The MySpace Story Although Facebook has come some way towards delivering a promise of targeted ads within a mass network, MySpace’s more focused overall offering seems to be proving more fruitful at the moment. MySpace is smaller globally than Facebook and, outside the US, is considered more of a niche player because of its more focused targeting towards teenagers and young adults through the vehicles of entertainment – encompassing music and video – and selfexpression (decoration options allow profi le pages to be highly customisable). Reports estimate that in 2008 Facebook earned around $US300 million in ad revenue compared to around $US1 billion for MySpace. If Facebook has made a conscious choice to go for the quantity vs. quality strategy it has yet to overtake MySpace in the all-important revenue metric. Whilst part of Facebook’s huge appeal is the simple layout of an interface that carries very little ad inventory, MySpace’s offering possibly makes its inventory – of which there is a lot more compared to Facebook – easier to monetize, particularly in terms of immersive 50 | P a g e

advertising. Bebo, also carrying more inventory than Facebook, has also done well in this regard by targeting teenagers and young adults through music and celebrity. Facebook is more focused on the “traditional” social networking component of communications, while sites like MySpace and Bebo are more focused on the entertainment content component. From an advertising perspective, it has been a moot point that monetizing content is easier than monetizing communications, which gives sites like MySpace and Bebo an advantage For example, in the UK across 2008, Bebo’s average monthly Unique Audience (4.7 million) was almost one-third the size of Facebook’s (12.5 million) yet managed to attract almost one and a half times as many advertisers (639 to Facebook’s 451). At an arbitrary base level, Facebook attracted 0.36 display advertisers per Unique Visitor, Bebo attracted 1.37 and MySpace attracted 1.51 advertisers per Unique Visitor. MySpace has also benefi ted from its acquisition by News Corp and being assimilated into the Fox Interactive Media stable – together with sites like Photobucket, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes and AskMen – which has provided MySpace with one of the most mature and successful display ad models within the social network space today. In the UK, mobile network operators – such as T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone – and media companies such as Sky and Virgin – dominate the most active advertisers on MySpace. Personal communications and entertainment are extremely relevant for sites such as MySpace whose audience is ultimately there to communicate and interact with friends in an entertaining and personalised way. 4.9.9.Facebook has replaced MySpace as the world’s most popular social network The global rise of social networks in 2008 has primarily been driven by Facebook, which overtook MySpace to become the world’s most popular social network. Less than four years after Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in February 2004, its rapidly soaring popularity saw it included in the 2008 edition of the Collins English Dictionary (as a noun and a verb). Facebook is now visited by three in every ten people online across the world. It has been a mixed year for the leading players in terms of their global footprint. Facebook (168% relative increase) and LinkedIn (137%) have seen huge increases in reach. Classmates Online has also seen strong growth, whilst Orkut and MySpace‘s reach has stayed fairly consistent.

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Fig. Comparison between MySpace, Facebook and Bebo

Fig. Mobile Network Operators were the most active display advertisers on MySpace UK in 2008.

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Fig. Increase in Global Online Reach

Fig. Facebook being the Leaders in various Countries

Fig. Countries where Facebook isn’t the leader

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4.9.10.Factors contributing to Facebook’s rapid growth 

Design An organized, simple and easy-to-use interface – with much less advertising compared to many of its competitors – is likely to appeal to a wider audience.



Broad appeal Facebook isn’t targeted towards a specifi c demographic like many other players (e.g. StudiVZ to students or Bebo to young adults) – ironic considering that it started out as a network for university students.



Activity Focus Facebook is focused on connecting as opposed to entertainment. It can be used for multiple networking activities – reuniting old friends, business networking, dating, sharing photos, status updates. Facebook is Reunion, LinkedIn, Yahoo! Personals, Flickr and Twitter all in one.



Architecture Inventive features (including applications, invites, requests) and open architecture including the masterstroke to open the platform to applications developers – have increased word-ofmouth and visitor engagement.



Privacy Members have more control over who sees their content than in many other networks where nonmembers can access personal content – a concern for many people.



Media coverage Facebook’s early momentum was given a huge boost due to the large amount of free media coverage it received.

4.9.11. First-mover advantage and language have kept Facebook at bay in some countries Although five years old, Facebook only came to global prominence in the last two years, allowing time for other social networks to take a strong hold. Creating a local infrastructure on the ground to establish a relevant local offering tailored to the nuances of the domestic market has been enough to keep Facebook at bay in some countries. In Germany, for

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example, local player Wer-kennt-wen is twice as popular as Facebook. In Japan, Mixi is around 27 times more popular than Facebook and, in Brazil, Orkut is 29 times more popular. 

Brazil: the Orkut phenomenon

Named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten, Orkut appeared in 2004 and students in major Brazilian cities started to distribute invitations for fun to see if they could make Orkut more popular in Brazil than its native USA – something they succeeded in doing. Orkut is the most popular social network in Brazil but also the country’s third most popular site. Half of the Brazilian Internet population visited Orkut in September 2005 and the figure is now 70% – the largest domestic reach of any social network anywhere in the world. Facebook barely registers a blip in Brazil compared to Orkut – being visited by just over 2% of Brazilians online. It’s not inconceivable that if Facebook had started a few months later, Brazilian students would have taken it on as their pet project and Facebook would have been the ‘Orkut of Brazil.’ Facebook only launched a Portuguese version for Brazilians in December 2008. 

USA: MySpace’s mass-market appeal

MySpace had already gained a significant following in the US by the time Facebook appeared on the scene. Furthermore, Facebook earned an early reputation as an exclusive service due to its birth within the elite northeast college sector. This stalled growth within the mainstream US market that MySpace appealed to. The US perception of Facebook and MySpace is a reversal of the situation internationally, where Facebook is perceived as mainstream and MySpace as being more focused around a younger demographic through entertainment and self expression. MySpace had established itself as an entertainment portal rather than just a pure social network. Its music offering, MySpace Music, is a key differentiator and remains a huge draw in the US, being used by almost every major music act in the country which keeps the content fresh and people coming back. Music’s importance for MySpace versus Facebook is shown though an analysis of social media conversations music is the biggest difference between topics discussed. It’s mentioned in 20% of posts about MySpace compared to just 7% in posts about Facebook. This has, so far, managed to keep MySpace ahead. However, at current audience growth rates, Facebook (145% growth from December 2007 – December 2008) is set to overtake MySpace (3% growth) in January 2009.

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

China: A Different Culture

A host of established domestic social networking players added to the different culture, language and the regulatory issues of doing business in China are the main reasons why the US social networks aren’t dominant here. By the time the US networks arrived, local players such as Xiaonei; the portal QQ and 51.com had achieved dominance in key demographic groups. Although many of the domestic social networks are very much based on the US offerings, their success was originally based on having partnerships with the portals which provided them with an audience base. Succeeding in China takes more than producing a translated version; it requires investment in a local infrastructure and a mentality of running a Chinese social network that understands the domestic nuances of social network behaviour rather than simply rolling out a generic social network in Chinese.

Fig. China’s Most Popular Social Networks 

Japan: The Language Barrier

A localised offering is essential to cracking the Japanese market and getting anywhere near the utter dominance of Mixi. Facebook only launched its Japanese language version in May 2008 and did so without any major form of investment in the country – it didn’t setup a local office and the translated version was done by volunteer members. 56 | P a g e

Whilst Facebook has a good following amongst Japan’s international community and its strength in privacy will appeal to the native Japanese way – Mixi is an invite only system – previous US companies have fallen short because of a lack of local leadership and a ‘humble’ mindset that acknowledges being big in the US doesn’t automatically mean being big in Japan. Furthermore, networks have to be adapted for the enormous domestic mobile Internet market. Part of Mixi’s dominance is down to the clever integration of its mobile and PC offering – its mobile version was launched in September 2004 and offers virtually identical functionality to the PC interface. 4.9.12.Mobile Social Networking is Taking Off As Mixi in Japan shows, the increasing popularity of social networks has resulted in increasing demand to access them on the move. Mobile is a natural fit for social networks, as consumers are used to connecting with friends via mobile calls and text. Using the phone to access social networks doesn’t require much change in consumer mindset. Subscribers access social networks on their mobile through three primary means: by browsing over mobile Web, through downloaded applications and by SMS (text-messaging). UK mobile web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset with 23% of them (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US (10.6 million people). The numbers of people doing so are a big increase on last year – 249% in the UK and 156% in the US. The most popular social networks via PCs/laptops tend to be the most popular via mobile too. Facebook is the most popular in five of the six countries where Nielsen measures mobile activity – only Xing in Germany bucks this trend. Mobile applications for handsets such as Apple’s iPhone are playing a substantial role in the expanded mobile use of these networks. Soon after the launch of the 3G iPhone, Facebook, with one of the most popular iPhone applications available, surpassed MySpace in mobile usage in the U.S. SMS (text message) is the third way users can interact with their social networks on the go. Primarily used for “status updates,” users can register a phone to send text message posts directly to their user profile. By the end of 2008, Nielsen estimated that almost 3 million U.S. mobile users were texting Facebook on a regular basis.

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4.9.13. What can publishers do? 

Understand that social networks are an opportunity for everyone

Social networks are a communication channel just like TV, newspapers, radio and the telephone. Therefore, social networks are just another vehicle by which any company with an offering, product or service can use to communicate, engage and connect with consumers.



Tap into what makes social networks successful

Publishers have the opportunity to actively participate in the social media revolution. The growth of social media and consumers’ willingness to generate opinion and co-create content is a big opportunity for traditional publishers to increase audience and engagement on their own sites. 

‘Internal’ - Increase interactivity within the publisher site

Publishers should instigate functionality that enables communities and conversations to form within their own sites. This doesn’t mean creating a social network infrastructure but can be as straightforward as allowing visitors to comment or create content related to material posted by the publisher. This enables traditional publishers to become part of the wider consumer conversation rather than just pushing content and sitting back. 

‘External’ – Participate in the conversation on social network sites

Just as consumers add content to social network sites, so can publishers. Social networks offer the opportunity to promote content to a wider audience across the web. Traditional publishers are amongst the most popular fan pages on Facebook, some having hundreds of thousands of fans. Instant Messaging has been a casualty of social networking in terms of a falling share of online time yet Windows Live Messenger, for example, has almost one million Facebook fans - around which a whole community of discussions take place. It’s 58 | P a g e

quite feasible that the falling share of time for IM could be more pronounced without this form of participatory advertising in social networks. 

Think about the mutual relationship with social networks and other media

A Nielsen study published in October 2008 showed that almost one-third of home Internet use (31%) in the US is accompanied by background TV viewing. Furthermore, more than 80% of Americans who watched TV and used the Internet in September 2008 used both simultaneously. Although teenagers were the most likely to use both together, adults aged 35 to 54 actually logged the most simultaneous Internet/TV usage minutes. These early trends potentially indicate that online usage is complementing, not substituting, traditional television viewing. Social networks and TV, therefore, might be a mutually reinforcing media as the level of twittering (updates sent through the micro-blogging service Twitter) during the recent Oscars proved. 

Whatever the successful ad model turns out to be in social networks – copy it

Success in social media advertising means overcoming obstacles such as complexity, creativity and relevance. Therefore, whatever the successful formula turns out to be in terms of new ad formats and a different approach to ad inventory, the ingredients could form the ‘best practice’ for advertising across all sectors – improving the success of online advertising everywhere. 4.9.14. Social Networks provide the trigger to improve the potency of advertising across all forms of media The social networking phenomenon is dramatically changing the way people behave and, consequently, offers new challenges and opportunities to the global media and advertising industry alike. Social network and blogging sites now account for almost 10% of all Internet time yet remains, with a few exceptions, a largely un-monetised form of media. The industry is still in its infancy in regards to successfully adapting its traditional ‘modus operandi’ to take advantage of this fundamental change in consumer behaviour. Whilst social networks provide significant competition for traditional publishers in terms of consumer attention, they also provide significant opportunities. Publishers can improve engagement with their own audiences – by tapping into consumers’ increasing desire to create content – and can use social media to syndicate their content beyond its traditional confines to a much wider audience. 59 | P a g e

The Industry faces a huge predicament. The factors behind Facebook’s stunning growth – a focus on connecting through a simple and relatively advert-free design – haven’t attracted ad revenues consummate with the size and engagement levels of its audience. On the other hand, MySpace’s audience is flattening but its ad model – built around a richer content offering, more in line with traditional online publishing – is doing better at attracting ad revenues. A magic formula to overcome this predicament and effectively monetize online’s most heavily used sector, hasn’t yet been found. However, a major ingredient will be a fundamentally new approach to the online ad model in terms of both ad units and ad inventory. This will involve a substantial trial and error process and is only achievable if the social networks, advertisers and their agencies work more closely together. Whatever the successful ad model turns out to be, the messaging will have to be authentic and humble, and built on the principle of a two-way conversation – not a push model – that adds value to the consumer. If this magic formula is found, the benefits could be truly incredible, having the potential to transform the potency of advertising across all forms of media to connect with target audiences and overcome the current distrust consumers have with advertising.

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4.10. TOOLS TO SAVE TIME ON SOCIAL SYNDICATION We can use different tools and plugins for our different social platforms to let software services take some of the key pounding out of online publishing. Here is the summary of process and the tools we can use.

May be this is not the right way, or only way, just sharing how we tackle sharing our content via social media to give folks who follow our posts a wide choice in channels for receiving them.

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Tools for syndicating and tracking your social media interactions : 1. Publish via blog Recommended tool: Wordpress – The most popular blogging platform which automatically produces an RSS feed at /feed.

Recommended Tracking method Google Analytics – it’s free and of course shows you the popularity of your posts, although the stats interface in Wordpress means you don’t have to go there or there’s a plugin to integrate GA. 2. Syndicate via RSS Recommended tool: Feedburner – Tell Feedburner your feed address and make it easier for people to subscribe to your feeds.

Recommended Tracking method With Feedburner you get great stats on “clickthrough rates” of posts and number of subscribers. It also adds Google Analytics campaign tracking tags too. It’s been owned by Google for the last few years, so we’re sure they’ll use it as a positive ranking signal too. 3. Post on Facebook wall Recommended tool: Networked Blogs – this works well most of the time, but it’s maybe confusing for Facebook followers to see this on our wall.

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Recommended Tracking method Facebook gives Pages owners its Insights which tell you about Impressions and interactions for each message on your page, but not the popularity of individual posts.

4. Post to Twitter Recommended tool: We can use Twitterfeed which is an online service that needs your feed address and twitter account and you’re done.

5. Linked In page Recommended tool: Linked In-Twitter integration – this is now a standard feature. Some argue that this will pollute Linked In with too many updates, others say you should encourage key employees to do this in B2B.

Recommended Tracking method – No tracking is done over here although referrers will be tracked in Google Analytics. 6. Email Newsletter Recommended tool: There are many choices here for email broadcast. Recommended Tracking method: This tracking will be provided by your email service provider who will often provide Google Analytics Email campaign tracking with Google

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4.11. 2010, THE YEAR OF “DIGITAL MARKETING” For people who kept on wondering whether digital advertisements can grow in India, the answers were pretty much clear this year. Thanks to social media (specifically, Facebook) and Mobile (3G is finally here), businesses in India invested a total sum of 1000 crore in digital advertising. But this growth is almost double in comparison to Rs 500 crore internet Ad spend which happened in 2009.

Not long ago we kept on speculating India’s internet market based on how Google was doing, and results were pretty disappointing. Google Ads are majorly meant for small and medium businesses and Indian small and medium businesses are quite skeptic about internet. Although Google India was profitable this year but total revenues earned were 779 crore (miniscule as compared to their overall ad sale revenues). Big brands in India were not comfortable using Google Adsense because of its search ability criteria. Hence it only made sense to advertise on Google when there were high chances of users searching particular words- say “IPL”. But all of these changes with the big-bang arrival of Facebook this yearalthough Facebook was popular for quite some time, but this year they surged ahead of Orkut. Facebook seems to have captured Indian mindset (they seem to have captured whole world’s mindset, btw) and quite brilliantly. Indians by nature like to converse and that gave big brands a reason to spend money on Facebook and engage users. 64 | P a g e

Facebook platform is not a search specific thing hence its easier for brands to continuously engage users based on their choice rather than their action. Remember that Google asks you every time what you want to do, but Facebook doesn’t. Today having a Facebook page is a must for every big brand and not to have a lakh fans on your page is a matter of embarrassment. So? Advertise more and get a fan following- Facebook has hit the nail for sure! The other important reason for overall increase in digital ad spends is growing mobile market; India has 40 million Mobile Internet subscribers now! BuzzCity, a Singapore-based mobile media company , in its Q3 report for 2010 stated that it served over 3.7 billion banner Ads on mobile phones in India (can you believe this). With cheaper smart phones this number would only increase and will increase fast and deep. It’s just the right time to have 3G services in India. I have learnt that many digital media companies are now focusing on delivering cutting edge 3G solutions like- “QRCodes”, “Artificial Intelligence” and location based advertising solutions to give another reason for brands to spend more on this space. Although all big companies are spending small amount (10-20 lakhs) on experimental basis in these new technologies, but the future seems to be quite bright for Indian digital space. In my opinion, all Indian internet companies should start thinking of “engaging” customers to thrive. Time has gone (much before it actually came) to stop relying on Google ads for revenues. Indian digital space is expected to grow 50% to 1500 crore by next year and to keep pace with competitors like Facebook and Google, Indian internet companies need to slog and slog hard!

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CHAPTER 5

HYPOTHSIS A hypothesis is a preliminary or tentative explanation or postulate by the researcher of what the researcher considers the outcome of an investigation will be. The hypothesis taken into consideration is that that the use of digital channels in marketing is an essential part of strategy in many companies.

The various aspects of Digital Marketing, such as web

advertising, attitude toward a site, perceptions of interactivity, and electronic service quality will be a major marketing activity. Study of Digital Marketing on Customer Loyalty would help future marketers to make the maximum use of Digital marketing by building stronger relationships with their customers. Now that the problem has been stated and the literature study has been defined, now we can come to a hypothesis that Digital Marketing is one of the important medium of communication and Digital Marketing will surely have a long lasting effect on Customer loyalty. Digital Marketing will deal in Personalization and interactivity and will moderate the effects of brand communication on customer loyalty. Digital Marketing will help in building customer loyalty through increased frequency and proper content on the websites and Information processing triggered by regular brand communication will generate customer value and commitment.

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METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY 6.1 Classification of data The data can be classified in terms of their nature, design, duration and sources. The 

data used for this study is both Primary data and Secondary data. Primary data This will include the information collected mainly from the Survey with the help of



questionnaires and interviews conducted during the study. Secondary data Secondary data will include information gathered from the internet and various other books and reports.

6.2 Sample Size A total of 50 respondents were selected for this study which includes both men and women and different age groups ranging from 17 – 30. 6.3 Sampling Audience 

Students



Office Colleagues



Friends & Family

6.4 Sampling Technique Sampling technique used for this study is convenience sampling. This method is often used to get a gross estimate of the results, without incurring the cost or time required to select a random sample. 6.5 Research Tool A questionnaire was used as a research tool to conduct the study. The questionnaire majorly consisted of close ended questions. 6.6 Limitations of the study As this was an individual project the sample size considered was 50 mainly due to the time constraint. 67 | P a g e

The data had to be collected from different types of respondents ranging from Students to Office colleagues to family members and friends. So the approach had to be changed accordingly. 6.7 Duration of the project The project duration was of 3 months approx. starting from December 2010 till February 2011.

CHAPTER 7

DATA INTERPRETATION 68 | P a g e

A sample size of 50 was taken for this study. This consisted of people from different age groups and different gender.

Age group

Gender

Gender Male Female 17-20

7

1

21-23

16

5

24-27

16

3

28-30

0

2

Age Groups

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Question 1 Age group

Where do you access internet from? Local Home

Work

Cybercafe

Cell Phone Do not access

17-20

7

0

1

0

0

21-23

13

3

3

2

0

24-27

11

5

0

3

0

28-30

2

0

0

0

0

The results for the 1st question clearly show that almost all the age groups have access to internet at home. However 66% of the people access the internet at home followed by 16% accessing the internet at work, 10% via cell phones and 8% visit the local cyber cafes.

Question 2

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Age group

How often do you use the internet in a week? Alternate Whenever Everyday

Days

Weekends

Needed

17-20

7

0

1

0

21-23

12

1

6

2

24-27

14

0

3

2

28-30

2

0

0

0

The results for 2nd question show that maximum people do access the internet every day. And few People access internet only on the weekends. This is mainly due to the busy schedules of studies and classes. 70% of the people access the internet every day, 20% accesses it on the weekends followed by 8% accessing it whenever the need it and just 2% say they access the internet every alternate day. Companies should understand this factor and hence try to build relationships with their customers as much as possible by using new and new strategies, be it via forums, games or events.

Question 3

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Age group

Which of these following aspects do you use the most? Social Email

Networking

News

Shopping Banking

17-20

3

4

0

1

0

21-23

4

14

1

2

0

24-27

3

12

0

0

4

28-30

1

0

0

0

1

The 3rd question shows that maximum nos. Of people use the internet for social networking almost 60% of the total sample size. This is a very important finding as it clearly shows that right marketing over such social networking sites would in fact create maximum impact. Companies hence should understand this and try and build better relations with their customers over social networking websites like Facebook, Orkut, etc.

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Question 4 Age group

Would you prefer Shopping Shopping at local Online

stores

17-20

2

6

21-23

6

15

24-27

2

17

28-30

1

1

The 4th question shows that even though digital marketing can create an impact, it is not at the place it should be. People still find flaws when it comes to shopping online (for e.g. security issues) and hence they would prefer shopping and local stores and malls. Hence only 22% of the people shop online and the remaining 78% still prefer shopping by visiting local stores. Companies should take an effort and try and promote online shopping as this would completely remove the mediators between the company and the end user. And this is only possible by developing better strategies for digital marketing and also by building better customer relations.

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Question 5 Age group

Are you brand loyal when it comes to shopping? Yes

No

17-20

5

3

21-23

18

3

24-27

16

3

28-30

2

0

The 5th question shows that maximum people are brand conscious when it comes to shopping and this is the case for all age groups (82% of the people). Hence it’s quite clear that there is definitely a change in the life style and hence the change in the buying patterns. Companies can definitely capitalize on this preference change by the right kind of marketing that includes digital marketing.

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Question 6 Age group

Have you purchased anything online? Yes No 17-20

2

6

21-23

7

14

24-27

4

15

28-30

1

1

The 6th question shows that maximum nos. Of people are still conscious when it comes to shopping online. There are several reasons behind this fear of information security, fear of purchasing the product in the right condition etc.

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Question 6.1 Age group

What have you purchased? Electronics Apparels Jewellery

Null

Food

17-20

7

1

0

0

0

21-23

14

4

3

0

0

24-27

15

2

2

0

0

28-30

1

0

0

1

0

The 6th question results led to 2 sub questions. The 1st part deals with what has been purchased maximum online. The results show that out of all the people who preferred shopping online 17-20 preferred shopping for electronics. 21-23 preferred shopping for electronics and then apparels. 24-27 preferred both electronics and apparels equally. 28-30 were very skeptical shopping online and only one of them said she purchased Jewellery online.

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Question 6.2 Age group

Why haven’t you purchased? No internet Lack of Null

Not Secure

Access

Not

Info

interested

17-20

1

5

1

0

1

21-23

7

5

2

4

3

24-27

4

7

0

4

4

28-30

1

0

0

1

0

The 2nd sub question of the 6th question dealt with reasons why people didn’t purchase online. People of the age group 17-20 said they felt it’s not secure. 21-23 had the same reason and also said that there was lack of information about purchasing online. Same results for people in the age group 24-27. It is quite clear that almost 34% of the people feel that shopping online is not secure. Companies should take an effort to build better relations with their customers and also ensure them that any information shared with the organization would remain confidential and through no means would be disclosed to anyone else. This might help not just help improve the sales but also help in building better customer relations.

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Question 7 Age group

Where do you prefer watching advertisements? Newspaper/ Shopping TV

Radio

Hoardings

Malls

Online

17-20

6

0

0

1

1

21-23

10

2

1

0

8

24-27

6

3

4

2

4

28-30

0

0

1

0

1

The 7th question shows that TV is still the most preferred medium for watching advertisements. Age group 17-20 felt TV was the best. 21-23 said TV was the best and then Online i.e. on the Internet. 24-27 said TV was the best followed by Newspapers/Hoardings and then Radio. 28-30 said Newspapers/Hoardings were the best. These results were quite surprising. TV and Internet (Online) both scored similar % of preference when it came down to watching new advertisements. This goes to show that rather than just focusing on TV advertisements, organizations need to start focusing on online advertisements as well.

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Question 8 Age group

Where do you get latest information on your favorite brands? Newspaper/H Friends/Famil TV

Internet

Radio

oardings

y

17-20

0

5

1

0

1

1

21-23

0

8

9

0

2

3

24-27

1

5

4

1

5

3

28-30

0

0

1

0

1

0

The 8th question shows where people get the latest information on their favorite brands. Age group 17-20 said TV was the best medium where they can get latest information on their favorite brands. 21-23 said Internet was the best source for latest information followed by TV. 24-27 said TV was the best followed by Newspapers/Hoardings and then the internet. 28-30 surprisingly felt Internet and Newspapers/hoardings are the best source for latest information on their favorite brands.

Results show that 36% of the people get latest

information on their favorite brands on TV. Followed by 30% who get the information on the Internet then Newspapers with 18%, Friends/Family with 14% and lastly Radio by 2%.

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Question 9 Age group

Do you follow your favorite brands online? Yes No 17-20

5

3

21-23

17

4

24-27

13

6

28-30

1

1

The 9th question shows whether people follow their favorite brands online. It was quite evident that maximum people followed their brands online. 72% of the people followed their favorite brands online either by visiting their official websites regularly or by joining their Groups / Communities on Social Networking websites to receive new updates.

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Question 10 Which of the following websites have you accessed? Age group * Facebook Cross tabulation

Age Groups

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

8

0

8

21-23

17

4

21

24-27

16

3

19

28-30

1 42

1 8

2 50

84% of the people were aware of Facebook. And almost all of them followed their favorite brands on the website.

Age group * Rediff shopping Cross tabulation

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Age Groups

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

7

1

8

21-23

14

7

21

24-27

14

5

19

28-30

0 35

2 15

2 50

70% of the people were aware of Rediff and its shopping feature. Some of them had shopped on it before while others had just browsed through the goods to look at the pricing of different products.

Age group * Orkut Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

8

0

8

21-23

18

3

21

24-27

13

6

19

28-30

1 40

1 10

2 50

80% of the people were aware of orkut. Some of them were regular on the social networking site while others had their ids but were quite inactive, they preferred Facebook over orkut.

Age group * MSN Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

3

5

8

21-23

14

7

21

24-27

7

12

19

28-30

2 26

0 24

2 50

52% of the people visited MSN. Some just to login into their hotmail accounts while others to view the latest news.

Age group * Yahoo Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

3

5

8

21-23

12

9

21

24-27

9

10

19

28-30

1 25

1 25

2 50

50% of the people visited Yahoo regularly. Same as MSN these visits were for either checking emails or to view latest news and some times daily horoscopes.

Age group * Techtree Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

4

4

8

21-23

8

13

21

24-27

8

11

19

28-30

0 20

2 30

2 50

Only 40% of the people had visited techtree previously and that was to get reviews of new electronic gadgets from Mobiles, Cameras to Computer Hardware equipments.

Age group * eBay Cross tabulation

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Age group

Yes

No

Total

17-20

6

2

8

21-23

10

11

21

24-27

13

6

19

28-30

1 30

1 20

2 50

Total

60% of the people had visited eBay. Some to shop while others just to browse the goods and check out their pricing.

Age group * Nike Cross tabulation

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Age group

Yes

No

Total

17-20

2

6

8

21-23

11

10

21

24-27

2

17

19

28-30

1 16

1 34

2 50

Total

Surprisingly only 32% of the people had visited Nikes official website. People said they would rather visit stores and purchase goods like Branded shoes as they would like to personally try it before they made the purchase.

Age group * Amazon Cross tabulation

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Age group

Yes

No

Total

17-20

5

3

8

21-23

10

11

21

24-27

6

13

19

28-30

1 22

1 28

2 50

Total

As compared to eBay, Amazon was less known in the market. Only 44% of the people had visited Amazon however people who had visited it previously and who had purchased goods had a wonderful experience.

Age group * Puma Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

5

3

8

21-23

10

11

21

24-27

9

10

19

28-30

1 25

1 25

2 50

50% of the people had visited Puma’s official website to go through their collection of shoes and clothing. Some to purchase while others were just browsing.

Age group * Google Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

8

0

8

21-23

21

0

21

24-27

19

0

19

28-30

2 50

0 0

2 50

100% of the people i.e. everyone involved in this study said that they had visited Google.com some time or the other in their life time. Be it for images, information, email, news, etc.

Age group * Naaptol Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

3

5

8

21-23

9

12

21

24-27

10

9

19

28-30

0 22

2 28

2 50

Surprisingly in a short span of time, Naaptol.com has created a mark in the minds of the people. 44% of the people said they had visited the website either directly or indirectly.

Age group * Futurebazaar Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

1

7

8

21-23

11

10

21

24-27

4

15

19

28-30

1 17

1 33

2 50

Futurebazaar the online shopping website hasn’t been that popular in the minds of the people. Only 34% of the people said they had visited the website mainly due to the recent advertising on cheap electronic goods. However they were very much concerned with information security.

Age group * Croma Cross tabulation

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Age group

Total

Yes

No

Total

17-20

5

3

8

21-23

12

9

21

24-27

7

12

19

28-30

0 24

2 26

2 50

48% of the people said they had visited the website for shopping online. However most of them said that they would rather prefer visiting the Croma store than shopping online mainly because of lack of information on the website.

CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION When the dominant logic of marketing is shifting from exchange of goods toward 94 | P a g e

service, digital marketing can help marketers improve their return on marketing and profitability by building stronger relationships with their customers. Digital channels offer cost efficient opportunities for marketers to keep frequently in touch with customers and improve customer loyalty. With such prospects in mind, it is not surprising that the use of digital channels in marketing is becoming an essential part of strategy in many companies. While parts of Digital Marketing, such as web advertising, attitude toward a site, perceptions of interactivity, and electronic service quality have been studied, integrated theories of Digital Marketing are scarce. This project with its findings and case studies would hence help future marketers to make the maximum use of Digital marketing by building stronger relationships with their customers. The social networking phenomenon is dramatically changing the way people behave and, consequently, offers new challenges and opportunities to the global media and advertising industry alike. If this magic formula is found, the benefits could be truly incredible, having the potential to transform the potency of advertising across all forms of media to connect with target audiences and overcome the current distrust consumers have with advertising. The study suggests that proper digital marketing can : 

Help in building customer loyalty through increased frequency and proper content on the



websites. It is also seen that Information processing triggered by regular brand communication generates customer value and commitment. Increases in these; improve customer loyalty, both attitudinal



and behavioural. Personalization and interactivity moderate the effects of brand communication on customer



loyalty. Finally it is seen that customer characteristics, involvement, and relationship can also act as moderators. The proposed project report is a primary research; however it has not been done on a 95 | P a g e

large scale. The sample size taken was only of 50 respondents. Secondary research has also been done where in information on the subject has been taken from various books and the internet. In addition there can be several other variables linked to this study that could support my findings, however that would require a larger and more diversified sample size which in turn would provide quality data on customers perceived value, commitment, information processing, etc, and their link to customer loyalty.

CHAPTER 9

RECOMMENDATIONS

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Having observed the evolving paradigms of business in the Internet era, there are five critical success factors that I would recommend every Digital-Marketer. Attracting the Right Customer is the first crucial step. Rising digital penetration would mean that the number of customer visiting particular sites would inevitably go up. While the number of eyeballs or page views has so far been conveniently used as a satisfactory measure by most web sites, it would be foolish to cater to the whole spectrum of digital visitors. Content has to be very target specific. The digital company has to select its target segment by finding out which section of customers are the most profitable in terms of revenue transactions and who are the customers who generate the maximum number of referrals. Here again it is important to note that the majority of online customers are not seeking the lowest price. Rather they are seeking convenience above everything else. The power of customer referrals has never been so enormous, since word of the mouse spreads faster than word of the mouth. E-Bay attracts more than half of its customers through referrals. Not only do referred customers cost less to acquire than those brought in by advertising or other marketing tools, they also cost less to support since they use their friends who referred them for advice rather than using the companies’ own technical desk. Delivering Content Value to engage the user’s interest is the critical importance in retaining customer participation. This is because content serves as a powerful differentiator. Content would include Product enhancements, personalized interactions, and Problem Resolution. Integral to the concept of delivering proper content value is innovation. Delivering proper content to make existing customers in the traditional “brick” business switch to Web-enabled transactions makes a lot of sense because in every conceivable case, the cost of Web-Based transactions is an order of magnitude less than the traditional ways and is decreasing at a faster rate. The cost of an Internet based banking transaction is less than one-tenth the cost of a human teller transaction. Ensuring E-Loyalty is vital to the success of any online venture. This is because acquiring customers on the Internet is enormously expensive and unless those customers stick round and make lots of repeat purchases over the years, profits will remain elusive. Contrary to the general view that Web customers are notoriously fickle, they in fact follow the old rules 97 | P a g e

of customer loyalty. Web customers stick to sites that they trust and with time consolidate their purchases with one primary supplier to the extent that purchasing from the supplier’s site becomes part of their daily routine. The issue of trust is integral to the issues of privacy and security. Companies like Amazon.com, which command amazing levels of consumer trust, have used a variety of encryption tools and simple ethical decisions like not accepting money for publishers for independent book reviews to maintain the trust of its customers. E-Learning to facilitate personalized interactions with customers has been the biggest contribution of the Web to the marketing strategists. In the digital marketplace, however technology has made the entire shopping experience a transparent process. For example, if the customer exits the web-site when the price screen appears, he is a price sensitive consumer. Such minute tracking of customer behavior has major implications for the world of advertising. The Internet may soon be used as a test bed for testing prototypes of marketing and advertising campaigns. By monitoring pages selected, click throughs, responses generated, and other indicators, the company would be able to discover which parts of a prospective campaign would work, thus reducing the risk of a potential flop. This would make it possible for the company to modify its product offerings much earlier than usual in the product life cycle. Providing Digital value to the evolving consumer through his life cycle has become possible because of customized interactions and emerging business models. The sectors where new business models will emerge or have emerged are the music industry, the financial services industry, the travel industry, the relating segment and the publishing segment. Digital value is delivered to the consumer by promising him convenience, allowing the customer to feel his ownership of the Web experience, and giving the customer a sense of belonging that traverses the physical boundaries. CHAPTER 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY Websites :  

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing http://headstart.in/2008/09/09/where-is-digital-marketing-headed-to-in-india/ 98 | P a g e

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_marketing https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/Four_ways_to_get



_more_value_from_digital_marketing_2556 https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/A_new_way_to_m



easure_word-of-mouth_marketing_2567 http://zhujian.me/wp-content/uploads/zhujian.me/2010/12/Understanding-Digital-

 

Marketing.pdf http://www.ait-uk.com/downloads/ait_digital_marketing.pdf http://clients.marketingsavant.com/green_bay_business_expo/pdf/ExpoHandout_Digit



alMarketing.pdf http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/indian-internet-users-grow-to-

 

71-million-imrb/articleshow/5703745.cms http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/in.htm http://indiamicrofinance.com/india-online-landscape-2010-internet-usage-statistics-



india.html http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/

Books :



A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing - Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Doogan, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik

  

Four ways to get more value from digital marketing - David C. Edelman The New Rules of Marketing and PR(Second Edition) –David Meerman Scott What Google would do? - Jeff Jarvis

CHAPTER 11

ANNEXURE 11.1 QUESTIONNAIRE OBJECTIVE: To study customer perception about digital marketing. Name: ____________________________________________________ 99 | P a g e

Age: _________ Gender: __________________ 1) Where do you access the internet from? a) Home b) Work c) Local Cyber-cafe d) Cell Phone e) Do not access 2) How often do you use the internet in a week? a) Everyday b) Alternate Days c) Weekends d) Whenever needed 3) Which of these following aspects of the internet do you use the most? a) Email b) Social Networking c) News d) Shopping e) Banking

4) Would you prefer – a) Shopping online b) Shopping at local store 5) Are you brand loyal when it comes to shopping? a) Yes b) No 6) Have you ever purchased anything online? a) Yes b) No i.

If Yes, What have you purchased? a) Electronics b) Apparels c) Jewellery d) Food

ii.

If No, Why not? a) Not secure b) No internet access c) Lack of Information d) Not interested 100 | P a g e

7) Where do you prefer watching advertisements – a) TV b) Radio c) Newspaper / Hoardings. d) Shopping Malls e) Online (Websites/Email)

8) Where do you get latest information on your favourite brands? a) T.V b) Internet c) Radio d) Newspapers / Hoardings e) Friends and Family 9) Do you follow your favourite brands online? a) Yes b) No 10) Which of the following websites have you accessed? (You can Select Multiple Choices)

 Facebook

 Rediff Shopping

 Orkut

 MSN

 Yahoo

 Techtree

 eBay

 Nike

 Amazon

 Puma

 Google

 Naaptol

 Future bazaar

 Croma

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11.2. CASE STUDY Sunsilk - Gang of Girls Background 

Towards the end of 2002 Sunsilk, which was then sponsoring the Miss India pageant, decided to establish an online presence for the endeavour.



The success of this activity spawned the idea of developing a portal for young girls and soon thereafter the Sunsilk Naturals (as the brand was known back then) came into being.



The site at this time was replete with substantial hair and beauty content while prominently featuring Jawed Habib as hair care expert.



This in turn successfully resonated with the target audience paving the way for an exclusive all-girl community that is today widely recognized as Gang of Girls.

Strategic Insights 

Over the years the website has evolved in its look, tone and core content. However, it has always operated on certain fundamental principles and with a thorough understanding of its TG.



Sunsilk gang of girls is an exclusive online community for such like minded girls. The site is built on the philosophy that girls love to gang together to express what they feel. It is a place for young urban women to come and say what they mean.



It is founded on three pillars and has been operating on these since its inception. These are self-expression, interactivity and hair & fashion content.



Today the website speaks to the 20 something urban woman found to frequent malls and multiplexes with a love of shopping and a tendency to live life to the fullest. The Sunsilk girl keeps up with the latest fashion and trends and would seek these out in magazines, movies and peers.



The brand recognizes this and broadly wishes to operate in the space of fashion and style. 102 | P a g e

Execution Platforms for Self-Expression 

GOG TV enables girls to upload and share their videos. It has features like the moviemaker create her own movie by using pre-shot movie clips. It also features the slideshow maker; where a user can upload pictures and give it various transitions along with background music.



Get Spotted is yet another platform for girls to showcase their talents in performance art, writing etc. and win prizes based on how other users rate their talents.



Furthermore, the Life Can’t Wait tools give users a unique and creative space wherein they can express to other users their life’s defining moments as well as their goals and dreams.



The Be a DJ feature in the Rhythm Lounge allows users to express themselves musically – they can create their own music mixes by mixing and matching pre-recorded instrumental tracks.

Space to Interact with Other Users 

Girl Talk is one of the most active sections of the website. It is a forum that gives girls the space to discuss everything from hair & fashion to the latest in entertainment.



Ask the girls is a special feature introduced with the understanding that girls often have questions that only other like-minded girls can answer. The site therefore has given its users the space to ask around. From fashion to sex to sports the girls can ask questions under specified categories and get them answered by other girls.



The website in association with MSN India has also introduced its very own mail and chat service available exclusively to girls on the website. Interactive Tools & Applications



The Complete Makeover Machine is a breakthrough tool that allows users to give themselves head-to-toe virtual makeovers by experimenting with the trendiest hairstyles, outfits and accessories.



The site is further equipped with exciting games that users can play over and over again.



A handy desktop application – the Sunsilk Buddy – keeps users abreast of the latest happenings on the site and gives them the means to update various sections of the site through the application itself. 103 | P a g e

Spirit of Ganging 

Ganging is alive and blazing ahead on the site and this can be seen in the core site sections that focus on the spirit of ganging.



The Gang Blogs for instance allows users to blog as a gang thereby each blog reflects the collective opinion of the various gang members that author it.



Gang Wars is yet another fun activity that gangs can partake in each month. Gangs get to



compete against one another in games and the winning gang is awarded exciting prizes. Gangs are also given the space to seek out new members and website newbie’s can find themselves a suitable gang by placing classified ads in the classifieds section of our site. Rich & Informative Content



The site is a rich reservoir of articles on hair styling, hair care, fashion trends, beauty secrets,



relationships and more. Additionally, the website features blogs by female celebrities giving users insight into the

 

lives and minds of their idols. The site is well equipped with the latest entertainment updates presented by MSN India. The website in association with Astro Life presents users their daily horoscope along with



other astrological insights. An association with Monster Jobs allows the site to present users with hot career opportunities for them to explore. Replicating Success across Asia The success of Sunsilk Gang of Girls, over the years, has given way to the launch of Gang of Girls websites for each of a number of countries in South and South-East Asia. Other Media Used



Towards the end of 2007 Sunsilk Gang of Girls introduced a viral spoofing the then popular



film ‘Chak De India’. The viral appropriately named ‘Choke There’ features a disgraced & beleaguered hockey coach in search of his dream hockey team. Some of the hilarious spoofs featured in the viral include Shah Rukh, Himesh, Mithun, Sholay’s Thakur and more.

Campaign Dates 104 | P a g e

June 2006 – January 2009 Campaign URL www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com Results 

Total Registration – 7,16,621



Average Monthly Page Views – 30,00,000



Average Monthly Hits – 1,20,00,000



Average Monthly Unique Visitors – 97,086



Total Number of Gangs – 42,586



Average Visit Length – 11.06 minutes Client Testimonial "The content of the website has evolved over time since its inception, but the philosophy on which the site was built has remained constant. The site is the place for a 20 something urban girl to come and band together with like-mined girls and express what she feels. Built on the three pillars of self-expression, interactivity and hair & fashion content, the website continues to successfully communicate with its TG." Sumit Mathur, Brand Manager, Sunsilk Hindustan Unilever Limited

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