Update : Randy Pausch

The inspiring Carnegie Mellon Professor and the author of the book - The Last Lecture ,Dr Randy Pausch passed away on July 25th Morning.
The ailing professor has inspired millions through his lecture and through his book. I hoped for a miracle recovery but god had other plans for him.

See the news update from Carnegie Mellon : Here

To quote his words
" We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand ".

Randy played his hand very well and left a legacy. He reminded me of living the life to the fullest and achieving your dreams.
Thank You Professor.

My condolences to Jai, Chloe, Dylan and Logan.

Watch the last lecture : here

Related Post
Book Review of Last lecture

Dip Trix : Just for Kids

Brand : Dip Trix
Company : General Mills

Brand Analysis Count : 339

Dip Trix is a unique brand. This iconic US brand debuted in India in 2005.Already the brand has become a hit in the Indian market.

Dip Trix is a snack food targeted at kids aged 4 - 12. The product is a Cookie and Cream snack which consists of fun shaped cookies and Cream.

Trix brand was launched in US in 1959. The brand has an iconic status in US with a range of products like cereals and yogurts. Dip Trix is the Indian avatar of Trix.


Dip Trix is a result of a careful consumer observation . The brand found that the users ( Kids ) wanted to play with food . But parents usually does not permit their kids to play with food.

Thus born this product which allows kids to play with the food with out getting rebuked. Dip Trix satisfied this need in a most simple way. The product comes in a unique tray pack with two compartments. The product comes with fun shaped cookies in one compartment of the pack and there is a cream in the another compartment.
Kids can then eat cookies either by dipping it in the cream, make sandwich , dunk or lick thus making the whole process fun-filled.

In India the brand has been doing pretty well. Going by the rate in which I buy it for my kid, Dip Trix has achieved its share of success.

Even before Dip Trix came to India, HUL has tried its luck on a similar product branded as Bistix. But the brand failed to took off.

There are two main reasons for success of Dip Trix. One is the smart pricing. Unlike other foreign snacks , Dip Trix is priced reasonably at Rs 5 . This is a magical price point which allows the parents to buy it because its perceived to be affordable. The fact that one pack can keep the child occupied for 10 minutes add more value to the product.

Second success factor is the marketing strategy adopted by General Mills. The brand has adopted a 360 degree marketing effort to capture the consumer mindset. It has successfully aligned the brand with films like Krrish . The brand gave away Krrish masks along with the product thus increasing popularity many times. Last year the brand has promoted itself through Spiderman 3 by giving away goodies.

The brand also have a highly interactive site at diptrix.com where kids can log in an play games. According to reports, the brand site has tremendously enhanced the brand's salience among the target group.

The brand also have a mascot. The mascot is the Trix rabbit which is always in the lookout for the creams. The cookies usually comes in the shape of the Trix rabbit.

Selling snacks to kids is a tough job. To catch the attention and loyalty of kids is a marketer's acid test. In a way Dip Trix has achieved that.

From my experience, I have observed that kids are also influenced by the peers. For instance, when I first bought Dip Trix, my child was not impressed. But when she saw one of her friends eating it, she also began to ask for the product. So these sales promotions help the brand to get into those 'little' opinion leaders and thus breaking into the rest of the TG.

Consumer Insight #1 : What are your customer's expectations ?

I just put down my telephone after some heated exchange with my traveling agent. The reason as always about refunds. I canceled my air tickets a couple of weeks back and after a dozen phone calls I still wonder about the possibility of getting my refunds in the near future .

Much has been written on customer service . Researches, articles, books and what not. But still we see the same pathetic management of customer service.

Last week, while visiting my new generation bank which boasts about being the most tech- advanced bank, I had to wait for 45 minutes for getting a Demand Draft. That too in a bank which have an automated queue handling system. The manager was helpless and surprisingly the bank does not have a formal complaint's handling mechanism. I was amused to see that the link for registering complaints in the bank's website does not work !!!!! Hum Haina ???

So is it about meeting expectations or managing expectations ?

Today's Economic Times ' Brand equity has a great piece written by Ms Janelle Barlow titled " Take your customer's complaints seriously ". She is the author of a very relevant book " Complaint is a gift ".

Read the article here : Take your customer complaints seriously

I strongly believe that a firm's customer service quality will reveal only when there is a complaint.How a company handles the complaint is the true determinant of its customer service quality.

Coming back to my experience with my traveling agent, I had certain expectations regarding the service to be provided by the agent. The service provider was not able to understand those expectations. The company may have systems and processes which can delay the refund, but as a consumer, I am totally unaware of what happens inside the company.

The entire issue would not have happened if the service provider gave me the information about possible delay at the point of cancellation. But that did not happen. So marketers should learn to be truthful to the customers while setting expectations.

Its common sense that no marketer can satisfy all the expectations of the customers. But what he can do is to try and manage those expectations.

In the case of the bank , it had built a series of expectation in the consumers through high profile celebrity endorsements and ads. Then at the consumer touch-points it fails miserably . For example the 'service request receipt ' generated by the machine sets the expectation by giving the time taken to attend my request. The time given to me was 90 seconds. Then everything went offtrack .
Marketers often fail to practice the wisdom of Understate and Overdeliver. Most of the time you bring in the customer promising him many things that you are not able to deliver.

Seth Godin has written a good post here : Seth on customer expectations

For the consumer : Never pay for your service in advance. If I hadn't paid my tour operator in advance, things could have been much different. He would have made calls to me and I would have been the king. So if there is an option for taking the service on credit, do it. Because marketers have a bad habit of forgetting their customers after being fully paid.

Please share your views and experiences on the customer service you have encountered.

Brand Update : Titan

Titan has repositioned itself this year with a new set of brand values and positioning statement. In a typical case of Laddering, Titan has embraced a higher set of values going beyond the basic product attributes.

Titan has come a long way . From a preferred gift item to a stylish accessory, the brand is now moving towards a higher goal of self - actualization.

Titan has now acquired a new positioning. The new slogan " Be more " captures the essence of the new set of brand values. From the reports, I think that the brand has adopted " Live life to the fullest " as the core brand manthra .

Watch the new commercial here : Titan Be more

As usual the commercial has captured the essence neatly and as usual Aamir does a perfect job.
In the commercial, Aamir says " Be born Everyday " which truly captures the spirit of the new positioning.

As a customer, I find the commercial and new positioning attractive. The brand is trying to move away from product attribute/benefit ( style) to a more abstract set of values ( Liberation).

Having said that , there are a couple of apprehensions also. Usually brand-laddering is a tricky move . Unless you are very careful, there is a chance that the customers may miss the whole idea. Sometimes marketers have a grand idea but customers will be left clueless. Ultimately if the customer does not understand the advertisement, then everything is a waste.

The current campaign is strictly for urban customers and is going to appeal to those customers who have a definite view of themselves and the world around them. Others will see this as another ad featuring Aamir .

The brand has to make sure whether this category now is mature to have this higher level of message. I still feel that Indian consumers look at a watch primarily as a time-keeping device as well as an accessory. It has not yet reached the position where consumers see it as an expression of liberation or self actualization.

The earlier campaign " What's Your style " appealed to a larger segment of customers because it talked about a very tangible benefit of the brand. The new campaign is more on one's 'view of life ' hence there is a chance that many customers may miss the whole point.

Usually when the brand is laddering up, it will also have supplementary campaign that reminds the customers about the functional attributes and benefits of the brand. In the case of Titan also , such supplementary campaigns are essential to appeal to a broader audience.


With regard to the concept of " Be More ". This is not a new manthra as far as Indian brands are concerned. There are many brands which talked about doing more and realizing dreams. The recent Cinthol campaign is also about doing more ( Don't Stop ). However, this need for self actualization is all pervasive and is a highly relevant value as far as customer is concerned.

Related Brand
Titan
Brand Laddering

Brand Update : Idea

Idea is running a new campaign on education . The new campaign featuring Abhishek Bachchan as a School Principal is aimed at promoting the concept of inclusive education ( education for all).
The campaign begins with a scene where a poor girl child is denied admission in a reputed school .The school principal think of a new idea to use Idea Mobile phones for teaching these poor kids.

Watch the Tvc here : Idea School Campaign

I was both impressed and intrigued by this idea. Impressed because the concept of inclusive education is a noble cause. Intrigued because I was not sure whether its possible to teach through mobile phones.

Further probing on the internet virtually crash landed my admiration about Idea. The idea is only an idea. This is just a campaign . Nothing more and nothing less. I thought that Idea cellular had actually developed a real model where kids in rural India can learn using mobile phones. But in fact this is only a campaign.

I think that many of the viewers would also be thinking that Idea has actually implemented this in rural areas .

The latest campaign was more in touch with reality than the earlier campaigns ( mobile numbers instead of name ) . That may be the reason I mistook it for a real life CSR initiative.
So what Idea is going to do is to spread the message of " education for all " using these campaigns. The brand also have tied up with an NGO Nanhi Kali and NDTV to further spread the message.
Had Idea tried implementing this model , then it would have given more credibility into the new initiative. The award winning campaign of Times of India's Lead India is a classic example of cause marketing . Not only was the campaign effective but at the end of the campaign there was also an output interms of identifying some leaders.
But in the Idea campaign , there is no visible output which can further enhance the brand's equity . There is no scope for following it up with another set of campaigns.

Idea with execution will change your life.

Inkfruit : Always On

Corporate Brand : Inkfruit

Brand Analysis Count : 338

Infruit is a unique brand with a special business model . The company is a e-retailer of designer T shirts. But there is a specialty in its business model. The brand aims to source designs from the consumers itself . It is another attempt to co-create with the consumers.

Inkfruit in its earlier avatar was known as Gnome was launched in December 2007. The company aims to discover the design talents in the country and provide a platform to exhibit their designs to a broader audience.

The model work like this :
The aspiring designers can send their designs to Infruit and these designs will be put to vote inside the Inkfruit community. The designs which gets maximum votes is eligible for a honorarium .
These designs are screen printed on T shirts which will be put on sale in the website. The company claims that the T-shirts are made of high quality and the screen printing delivers to the designs.

The T shirts is available for Rs 349 ( Plus delivery charges ) which I think is a reasonable price .

India does not have a pure T-shirt brand. Although most of the readymade brands have T shirts I feel that there is a scope for a pure-play T shirt brand. Because there is a wide acceptance of this category among all demographic profiles in the Indian market. Ladies, Kids, Gents, youth ;all like wearing T-shirts.

In this perspective, Inkfruit has done the right move in tapping this market. Here the differentiation is with design. The company smartly is trying to tap the design talents in the country in a very economical way. We know that reputed designers are costly while there is a huge design talent in India who are looking for platforms to express their skills. Inkfruit offers them the much desired platform.

But all are not rosy for the business model of Inkfruit. The concept of e-retailing is in the nascent stage. The penetration of Internet among the consumers is a vital variable in the success of any e-retailing venture.
There are security fears among consumers in using internet for shopping . To tide over this fear, Inkfruit has introduced Cash-on- Delivery at an additional cost of Rs 30.

With regard to the branding, Inkfruit has to have more clarity. Is it going to be a corporate brand or the T-shirt brand or is it going to be the store brand ?

From the pictures of T-shirts in the website , It is not clear whether there is Inkfruit label in it.According to the company, the name of the designer features on the label which would be a highly motivating factor for the designers.

So with regard to the brand, Inkfruit has to decide and convey its basic brand values to the consumers.
In the marketing perspective, I feel that Inkfruit should be branding its T shirts either using the corporate name or other suitable names. Then they can develop designer series based on the results of the community voting.

Another factor is the sustainability of the model . Inkfruit has tapped the enormous potential of ' Word of Mouse ' and the marketing team has been proactive in reaching out the bloggers and CGM publishers. So far Inkfruit has got tremendous support from the bloggers and online publishers. The brand has to take it forward to the next level of engagement.

T shirt is more of an experiential product which the consumer would like to see, touch and feel before going to make the purchase. So the challenge for the company is to tide over this experiential nature of this product and make the consumer to look at the design and then buy.

To do that , the company may have to induce the customer to make trial purchases. Although the price is reasonable at Rs 349, if a customer wants to order it through COD, then the cost will come to Rs 409. This can put off those customers who wants to try it off. So the company can rethink on the delivery/ COD cost to induce more trial purchases.

It is not easy to make the customers vote for designs and then buy from the website. That require lot of effort from the company . In branding jargon , the level is the Active Engagement where the consumer will use their personal time to participate in activities connected with the brand.

Inkfruit is a unique brand with lot of potential . The realization of this potential is dependant on the effort of building a community around this brand.
Checkout the brand site : Inkfruit.com