COVER STORY

E-Advertising : An Astute Way for Brand Positioning -- Sengupta and Noopur Agrawal

Amid the various media of advertising, the Internet is growing in magnitude day by day. Internet advertising encompasses the advantages of both the print and the visual media. It is a step further owing to the interactive capability. Advertising has a prominent say on the marketing strategies. The Internet, being dissimilar from the conventional advertising media, has something more to offer to marketing strategies. The Internet can contribute substantially in developing the brand with the available database of the prospective customers. As interaction is possible through the Net, it provides avenues to reach the target and niches. Online advertising can notably change the marketing scenario. Globalization and liberalization can be even more consequential with the help of Internet advertising.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

BRANDING

Brand Image of Indian Hospitals -- Smriti Pathak

This article advocates how total quality service, better staff-patient relationship and good facilities lead to create a better brand image of hospitals. In comparison to manufacturing sector Total Quality Management (TQM) plays more important role in development of brand images of hospital service units. With most modern equipment, specialists, hi-tech and specialty hospitals, Indian hospitals have become the preferred destination—the Mecca for healthcare. This article also highlights the importance of service delivered in Indian hospitals for developing a better brand image globally.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

BRANDING

Internal Branding -- Litty Varghese and Aiswarya S

Companies spend millions of dollars in retaining loyal customers but at the same time, forget to retain their internal customers. As someone has rightly said, "If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers". This article gives insights on how to make your employees your `brand champions' .

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

BRANDING

Sub-branding Strategies and Their Role in Brand Building -- Kisholoy Roy Kisholoy Roy

Sub-branding strategies are often successfully implemented by companies across various industries. It is pursued when a brand attains maturity or saturation and is found to revive the fortunes of the brand. It adds greater relevance to a brand and attracts newer consumer segments, thereby ensuring greater returns on a brand's investment.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

MARKETING

Enchant Marketing : Tamil Nadu Tourism -- T Devasenathipathi and R Gayathri

Of late, countries across the world are aggressively marketing their cultural, social and historical assets, human resources, flora and fauna, locations, etc., with catchy phrases to woo local as well as international tourists, students, business entities, corporate honchos and even patients to come and spend their time and money. In this regard, Malaysia has been very successful by tagging itself `Truly Asia' and Australia has received ire from international community by asking them "Where the hell are you?" India's attempt to market itself as an `Incredible India' has resulted in limited success apart from being a second fastest growing Asian economy. In India, many states have jumped the marketing bandwagon to attract potential tourists. So far, Kerala has been successful with its most famous `God's Own Country' slogan to record highest number of tourists. Its neighboring state Tamil Nadu, which has more varied landscapes and climate, number of temples and quality healthcare services, has marked its entry with a tagline of "Enchanting Tamil Nadu".

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

MARKETING

Green Marketing for Sustainable Business Growth -- Pradip K Deb and Gopal Das

Green marketing awareness is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The term implies satisfying consumer needs and wants profitably by marketing products which are eco-friendly. As business organizations are getting more inclined to pursue green marketing for sustainable business growth, they encounter a major challenge in justifying higher costs of environmentally safe products.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

PERSPECTIVE

Do Jingles Really Work in an Ad? -- V Ganapathy

The advent of jingles dates back to the early 1960s when Vividh Bharati was used as a powerful medium for promoting brands. Some of the well-known brands such as Lifebuoy and Horlicks used radio very well and they also developed powerful jingles with memorable, evergreen tunes which ring fresh in our minds even today. Though there might be a slight variation, the basic tune has been retained by these brands. David Ogilvy, the Founder of Ogilvy Group, always felt that jingles were used when you had nothing unique to say about the product. While this is true to some extent, one cannot apply this today as jingles are being used by advertising agencies very cleverly with strong creative ideas. Music and culture are deeply rooted in India and with great following for films and songs, jingles strike a great emotional chord with the Indian audience. Jingles are still popular and they still work if applied and created with a good idea and strong relevance.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

PERSPECTIVE

Strategic Creation of Customer Loyalty Through High-intensive Relationship Marketing : A Conceptual Framework -- M Sakkthivel

Today's market has become more complex and has witnessed the constant churn of customers across different brands. The marketers spend billions of dollars to acquire, satisfy and retain consumers. They deploy high-power customer relationship tools to track, monitor and nurture the potential customers. However, despite all the efforts, the churn has become a major concern for the marketers. This article aims at identifying the intensity of loyalty to be created in order to make customers stay and contribute, along with the discussion of certain conceptual models that help the marketers understand consumers and connect with them.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

PERSPECTIVE

Mobile Number Portability : The Challenges for Mobile Services -- Sabitha Niketh

It is a known fact that telecom industry opened its doors for the private players in 1994 after globalization. Fourteen years down the line mobile market has grown tremendously and all the organizations are formulating strategies to gain brand equity. This is quite difficult in case of mobile market because the operators are concentrating on price differentiation. But for a customer, price is not the only parameter to be loyal to a particular brand. In future when mobile number portability is introduced, it will be even more difficult for the mobile operators to build brand equity.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

THE CASES

The Rise of the Bhojpuri Film Industry : A Case Study -- Ruchi Jaggi

This case study looks into the factors that have spurred the recent success of Bhojpuri Film Industry besides discussing the market forces that have influenced the same.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

THE CASES

Wrigley : Grand Plans that Did Not Stick -- PS Sarath Chandra

Chewing gum has been at the center of a retail rivalry between Wrigley and Cadbury. Mars-Wrigley deal brings together two of the country's oldest, most successful corporate entities and can trigger a wave of further consolidation in the international confectionary industry that lacks a dominant player.

© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved