Brand Naming Exercise

As a part of my summer internship, I got a chance to work on Naamkaran of a brand, a.k.a. brand naming exercise. In the first year of my MBA course, I learned about branding (just the basics). But it was a completely different experience to study the process first-hand.

Competitor analysis:

When on an agency side, everything starts with a competitor analysis (trust me, even when the agency wants to buy new paper towels, a competitor analysis will be done for all the brands of paper towels). We gathered following key information about competitor brands:

• Name
• Origin (rationale behind the name)
• Tagline
• Positioning in the consumer's mind 
• Overall brand proposition
• Print and TV ads 

This exercise gives us a fair idea of positioning of competitor brands and general trends of brand names in the category.

From here on-wards there are many ways to figure out the new brand name. I am explaining the two approaches we used to achieve our goals

Approach one:

• Figuring out the routes behind competitor brand names
• Choosing a suitable route and developing brand name and positioning relative to that route

Approach two: (Reverse processing)

• Figuring out suitable positioning for your brand,
• Then reverse engineering name options for the brand

Once a few names have been shortlisted to be presented to the client, you need to build a rationale around each name. This should include following factors in detail:

• Name
• Basic concept or the "big idea" behind the name 
• Descriptor based on concept
• New positioning sought by the new brand (if to continue with the old positioning, or reposition is upto the client)
• Narration based on concept or an AV that will explain the idea in detail
• Various ideas that can be implemented for branding (this is an optional feature)

Thanks for reading guys!

Just give a missed call...

The Indian innovation of missed call has become an integral part of our life now. And as most of our innovations, we jugadu’s have found a way to use this innovation to mint money. Though not many marketers have bid their adieus to unsolicited calls and SMSs that drive the consumers crazy, the missed call marketing will soon show the door to these practices.

How it works:

Missed call marketing is an opt-in form of marketing which is free for the consumer. The Long number (something like 1800 *** ****) is communicated to the consumer through the various advertisements. The consumer can give a missed call on this number in order to acquire additional information about the product/service. This information can be provided through a voice call or SMS sent by the company to consumer at company’s expense.

Why it works:

Being an Indian, imagine yourself visiting a restaurant. Which of the following scenarios will make you feel more comfortable?

Scenario 1: You go up to the counter and ask the manager about the dishes. The manager may or may not charge you for the information

XOLO X900 by Mccann Erickson

Though XOLO has stepped in the Indian mobile handset market quite recently, the prospects for the company look good.

In a hatke way, XOLO has already struck a 3 season regional marketing partnership deal with Liverpool FC. XOLO handsets are already giving a tough fight to bigwigs like Samsung and HTC. XOLO owes a part of this success to Micromax, as the later was the first to break the barrier for entry for regional players in the Indian smartphone market, which is growing ata booming rate of 229% year-on-year.

For the newest model launched by XOLO, the X900, they have released a series of print ads, focusing on the feature: Built In Translator

Type: Print

Advertiser: XOLO India

Agency: Mccann Erickson India Pvt Ltd

The ads are based on creative appeal and show one person turned into two via face painting. The basic message this ad is trying to convey is that "the built in translator in XOLO X900 makes translation as easy as speaking to yourself..."

My take:

The minimalistic design of the ad is in sync with the current trend. However, since it is an ad for a smart phone, only focusing on a single feature might not work well. I am hoping a series of ads will follow to highlight other features of XOLO X900.