Marketing Strategy, Marketing Management, Marketing News, Advertising reviews

SWOT of Taco Bell

November 22, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

Taco Bell, the American fast food chain which serves Mexican food is the latest international fast food chain to enter India. It’s been operating an outlet in Bangalore since more than a year now. It plans to expand into other major cities and finally into the tier2 towns and cities, with an aim of setting up 100 outlets in the country by 2015. “Think Outside the bun” the tagline of Taco Bell takes head on other chains selling burgers. The affordable pricing of its food items makes it easily accessible to the mass market in India and pits it directly against the Market Leader, McDonalds. It will be very interesting to see what strategy TACO BELL follows in India and whether it is able to replicate its success outside USA.

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Branding – How it all started

November 13, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

Brand – The word, the phenomenon which has revolutionised the behaviour of shoppers when they are all out in pursuit of finding THE perfect stuff in stores. Little do they worry of what goes behind in formation of a phenomenon, which magnetizes them towards itself in a shopping store.

Companies at the same time are putting in mammoth efforts to create their individual identity in the cluttered market space. In order to really understand, what needs to be done, along with its most important counter parts “when” and “how”, I invariably think it is very much necessary that we start from the very basics of it, i.e. how it all started and what does it actually mean and intend to do, so here we go:

So how was this whole concept of branding born which today governs the fate of a new product or a service in the market? Well, the word brand is derived from Old English which means “Burning stick”.

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6 Advantages of Segmentation

November 11, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

A company cannot devise a market strategy without market segmentation. Imagine that you became a teacher one day. And the only thing your employer told you is that you have to teach students!! There would be several questions asked by you. Which grade are the students in? What is the subject i will be teaching? What timing are the classes etc. If you dont ask these questions, the “Students” will be a very generic term for you, and you will have no idea whom you have to teach or what you have to teach.

The same dilemma is faced by companies. If they don’t do segmentation, they do not know whom they have to sell and what they have to sell. In my other articles on segmentation, i have emphasized on the role that segmentation plays in the Marketing mix of a company. The segmentation done by you can be based on the company’s marketing mix. Or if you are targeting a particular segment, you can change the marketing mix as required in that particular segment. Thus without segmentation, your target group is just a population and you will never understand how you can target them.

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Which market segment should you target?

November 10, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

There is a very generic approach which can be used to decide which market segment you want to target. These approaches are – Mass Marketing, Differentiated marketing and niche marketing. The approaches are shown and discussed in the below three figures.

Approach 1 – Mass Marketing

When you have a mass market product such as telecom or fmcg, you need to have a complete marketing mix and then depending on the marketing mix, you target a market. For Example – in telecom and FMCG, practically the marketing mix depends on the competition itself. The saturation in these sectors is so high that they have to target their market through changes in their marketing mix itself.

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Difference between Segmentation Targeting and Positioning

November 7, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin 3 Comments

One of the first principles of Marketing management is Segmentation, targeting and positioning also known as STP. However, all the three concepts are so parallel to each other that marketers may not understand importance of keeping them separate and the role that each of them play in a marketing strategy.

Lets first look at the process of STP. This in turn will help you understand the role of all three. The first step which takes place in STP is the segmentation part. This is mainly because, before segmentation, the customer base is known as a population. The population is comprised of a group of people, which have no differentiation between them. However, you cannot market to just a group of people because you might be wasting resources. You do not know which strategy to use or how to market.

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Transformation of Indian customers

November 1, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin 4 Comments

India is an economy which has gone through several changes post liberalization. This has opened up gates for various foreign entities to enter our market and grab a share of the pie while at the same time creating more jobs and options for the end user.

The pre liberalization Indian consumer was more orthodox in his life style and thinking process. He believed in three S, which were

1) Savings
2) Spirituality
3) Safety

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Mass customization – Is it the new communication strategy?

October 16, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

In one of the last articles we have been talking about the process of internalization, of taking your business on an international market. At the moment we have mentioned some huge mistakes that business people usually do when initiating this process, and one of them was related to the customized marketing. However, there are also some other aspects that should be considered when marketing products on a global plan.

As business people, we should ask ourselves what do we want people to think , feel and do differently? And here we have to bring into the discussion the communication strategies. In general, firms have to communicate to consumers in order to make them consider buying the products that the firm is selling. The most common way of communicating with customers is through advertising. And here one can choose between undifferentiated marketing where there is just one marketing program for all the market segments and differentiated marketing, where there are different marketing programs, something also known as “customerisation” or “targeted marketing”.
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Alternate Marketing mix – Four C’s of Marketing

October 12, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

The traditional Marketing mix is a 4 P’s model and is business oriented. The 4 C’s model of marketing on the other hand is more consumer oriented. Because of its focus on consumers, the 4 C’s model is mainly used for Niche Marketing. However, just like the traditional marketing mix, it can also be used for mass markets. The four variables in the 4 C’s model are

Consumer
Cost
Convenience
Communication

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Cadbury touches hearts with its lonely maa ad

October 10, 2011 By Hitesh Bhasin Leave a Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtLlfvek0Vs

Cadbury lately came out with its new TVC “Lonely Maa” for the festive season. Cadbury which has always tried to associate itself with the “Celebrations” in the life of the Indian consumer has done a brilliant job of communicating this message.

The ad begins with an old woman walking into a room. The voice of her son who has gone away from her for a job, talking to her plays in the background, while she tries to with great effort operate a personal computer and browse the internet. She follows a set of hand written instructions and tries to log on to Facebook. Meanwhile, in the background her son tells her about his promotion and how his life has become very busy but he still manages to stay in touch with his friends virtually. He wishes them on their birthday and sends them Diwali greetings on Facebook only. The woman finally frustrated with her unsuccessful efforts gives up trying to logon to Facebook. The ad then ends with a voice over saying ” She is your mother, not your friend. Meet her personally this Diwali with a pack of Cadbury Celebrations”

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