Printing Techniques by N. N Sarkar as on 22/10/2013

"Typography isn't mathematics, you'll have to see it"

Graphic Elements

- Pictures
- Colors
- Graphics
- Typeface


Typography was developed in the 15th Century and revolutionised communication, owing to the great man Gutenberg (who's known as the father of the communication)

Letterforms

Signography: Drawn, fabricated letterform. It is manipulated.

Calligraphy: Freehand letters an art of beautiful writing

Typography: Letter character that has developed by some mechanical system, standardised letterform made from mould, stone on grid.

Typeface: Letter image as the body which gives impression on page that is read.

Typebody : Type that carries letter image and gives impression on page which has been linked.

You don't have a long text in capital letters you see/view words as a rectangle box and if everything begins too look like a block then it hampers your reading speed.

   Special scale known as the Pica scale is used for type measurement.

Unit of Pica Scale : Picas and Points
                               12 points = 1 Pica
                               6 Pica = 72 Points = 1inch (approx)

 
Book Recommendation: Art and Print by N.N. Sarkar


Font is a formal term that includes all of the upper and lowercase letterform, numerals, punctuation, symbol that comprises of a particular size, style and weight.

A family of type include all the variation of a type design in all sizes.

1. Classical: Thick and thin fancy lines with short angular strokes; Family: Old, English  

2. Roman: thick and thin strokes with serif attached to the man strokes; Family: Times Roman

3. Lineal:

• a) Square uniform strokes within a letter with serif; Family: Rockwell, Serif 

• b) Sans Serif: Even body without serif; Family: Arial, Avant Garde

4. Fancy:

• a) Decorative: Highly decorated faces not having clear cut characteristics; Family: Galliard 

• b) Novelty: Legible, minimum decorative faces; Family: Optima, Souvenir 

5. Handwritten:

• a) Resembles calligraphy but mechanically developed. Mainly joint letters; Family: Brush

• b) Cursive: Separate letters, handwritten style; Family: Legend  

Marketing Research by Parveen Ahluwalia as on 09/11/2013

"Advertising that works for for your client is the best advertising" 

Position Strategy  is based on four basics, them being:

- Competitive
- Relevant
- Distinctive
- Credible


(With the case of) Live Brand

- Competitive Brand image
- Self Brand Image
- Current Brand Position
- Competitive Brand Positioning


"Dead Brand : No iota of brand recall, when compared to other brands"


Category Benefits Analysis


Step 1

- Evaluate all category benefits


In the case of category being whisky…

- Blend (smooth taste)
- Heritage
- Ingredients
- Price (w.r.t. Value For Money)
- Attitude

"In terms of brand loyalty, consumers of whisky and cigarettes have the highest loyalty"


Step 2

- Blend (smooth taste) B2, B4, B7
- Heritage B1, B3, B7
- Ingredients B5, B6, B8
- Price (w.r.t. Value For Money) B1, B4
- Attitude B1, B9

With B1 to B10 being different brands, We need to see and find out as to how many competitive brands are focusing on one key attribute and are talking about them.


Step 3


- Blend (smooth taste)
- Heritage
- Ingredients
- Price (w.r.t. Value For Money)
- Attitude
- XXXXX  

May be like a streak of lightning, you're hit with a stroke of genius and you happen to think of a 'new' attribute that didn't exist until now.  Again this happens in extremely rare cases.


"Positioning is about a reason/rationale to buy/purchase. Period."

A hoarding should have an option of response action (As in email, phone, website)


Creative Strategy Considerations

- Tone and Style => (Confident, Warmth, Seductive, Bold are all examples of tone)
like for example A movement called Telco used an empathetic tone.  


"Ideally an advertising should talk to a consumer, better if it talks with the consumer" 

- Visual Dominant or Copy heavy
- Objective of the campaign (if it's a new brand, then you'll have/should use worse that defines that it's it's a new brand and thus is a launching)
- Role of Branding
- Brand Personality

"Personality is that intrinsic, trait that differentiate one from another"



If you build your personality such that it is too highly placed as in the case of Four Squares Kings which was Highly Extroverted, Fantasy and more Outdoorsy than when compared to Gold Flake Kings, people will like you but there's a good chance that they won't buy you, a point that is driven home by the fact that Gold Flake Kings sells 4 times that of Four Square Kings.


Celebrity Personality

Celebrity's personality should match to that of the Brand's personality, if they compliment each other then it is in good stead. If the celebrity is all too pervasive as in the case in point of Amitabh Bacchhan in Navaratna Ad, then that will invariably mean the the very end of the brand.      

Communication Theory by Naren as on 22/10/2013

“You can become anything professionally but if you don’t understand the ways of life, then your life becomes futile”

Manufacturing Consent…

“If there isn’t a consent then the establishment will overthrown or over ruled”

“People who own the means of production, own the means of mental production”

Propaganda: Ideas that are false, biased and that which are spread in order to help a group, institution, nation etc…

Responsibility of Journalism as a Fourth State…  

•       Report events objectively as they occur, to allow citizens to make informed political choices
•          Control governmental abuses of power, through investigative journalism

Herman and Chomsky consider US media to be a failure with respect to the above but in turn they consider US media to be a propaganda system.

è 

•      Unlawful activities have to be unearthed by the fourth estate; this is its very principle.

Like P. Sainath said, “There’s a compulsion to lie” for a simple reason that, it is precisely how the nature of business and business interest work.

Corporate Ownership = Political Economy

“You don’t pay PR agencies for negative PR”

“Only 12% of shares are written by journalists”

The three ownership of media:

• ·      Corporations
• ·      Politicians
• ·      Government

“There’s none who’s out of the sphere of the politics and economics”, in fact it is commonly believed that “Bad Economics is Good Politics and Good Economics is Bad Politics”

“Political economy is the study of social relations”

“The key in every economy is labor”

Capitalism and Communism are the two major kinds of Economy. Capitalism will mean free flow of money; there will be a right to private property. Communism on the other hand will mean that none will have the right to private property and the means of production will be in the hands of the state.

Communism later got branched into Liberalization and Social Democracy; Production process is the one barometer, which is one of the most important facets that’ll tell you about any company, followed by distribution.

Globalization came up as a result of stagnation; they needed to open up their economies considering their own respective economies were in tatters. All the banking facilities of the world like IMF, ADB and the likes are not exactly in the business of charity, thus with India taking their monetary aid had to finally give in and forced to open up our economy.

“With Homogenization, it is the dominant culture that will survive” 

Market Research by Narayanmoorthy as on 23/10/2013

Market Prioritisation and Product distribution

“Media Planning is the closest discipline to marketing”

-       

•       The markets addressed in the media plan must closely replicate the product distribution
•             This will maximize Return on Investment (ROI) for the brand 
•             The most common cause of friction between the media agency and the client is on the market  prioritisation
•             Clients invariably provide a market prioritization in the brief rather than the data used for such prioritisation
•             Resulting in the media agency not fully understanding the logic behind the market prioritisation
•             Clients often state that the reasons for the improvisation of the data is that of lack of confidentiality (owning to frequent changes in jobs by ‘our’ generation)
•             Thus could very will copy/use the data of their older client in order aid it’s competition

“Understanding the logic of market prioritization is the appreciation of using the right data” 

Common issues whilst handling data:
-         Accessing the right data
-         Using the right amount of data
-         Understanding and interrupting the data correctly

This has even lead to the term “Paralysis by Analysis”

Brands Market

• -          Is it a big one?
• -         What is its evolution?
• -         Which markets are similar?
• -         Who are the competitors?
• -        How is the product distributed, what role does the retailer play?

How do the different market perform in terms  of:

• -       Pricing
• -       Distribution
• -       Promotion
• -       Packaging
• -       Range
• -       Communication
• -       Sales
• -       Market Share
• -       Image
• -       Awareness

“Ideally clients should provide the data for market prioritization”

•        Retail Audits
•      Internal client data (or published industry data)
•           Adex (ad expenditure) data (the media agency has access to this data)
•         Usage and Attitude
•         Consumer Panel Data
•         Tracking and Barometer studies
•         Image data

Retail Audits

-       Scanning of product codes and store visit by professional auditor

• -       Tracks sales, volume, maximum retail price, any promotion if the brand is running one, merchandising etc
• -       To help management to gauge overall product preference, distribution, promotional activities and sensitivity (wrt price)        

S      Scope of Retail Audits 

• -       Supermarkets
• -       Gas/Petrol stations
• -       Convenience Stores/Kirana
• -       Pharmacies
• -       Independent Food Stores

Retail Audits happen either monthly or weekly, in FMCG and some durable goods market, and the main institutes that conduct this are AC Neielsen, IRI and Gfk.

Key Measures

• -       Sales – Volume and Value, unit sale
• -       Price – Retail selling price, regular price and promotional price
• -       Distribution – percentage of stores selling the brand
• -       Promotional activity –Percentage of Stores:

ð Displaying the brand

ð In-store materials

ð Price reductions

ð Special Packs 

There is no retail audit date for Leisure and cultural activities, Service markets like; Banks, Insurance, Catering etc…

Reasons as to why Retail Audits is not necessary:

• -       Structural (Monopoly)
• -       Cultural (No share of information)
• -       Economic (Too expensive)
• -       Free syndicate or legal data exists.
• 
  

Use Internal Client Data

• -       Issued from trade and sales forces checks marketing and financial services
• -       The main problem is to have competitor’s market information
• -       Any syndicate or legal battle unavailable
• -       How does the management keep up with the business?

Communication Data (Adex)

• -       Examine how competitors are fighting the battles in terms of their communication

ð Media Mix

ð Media Spend

ð Share of Voice

ð Weight

ð Timing

ð Geographic Spread

ð Scheduling

ð Key Creative Message

ð Target Group

Split data by media and type of communication:

• -       Spend
• -       GRPs
• -       Share of voice

Consumer Data

• -       How many are there, who are they?
• -       Are they regular purchasers of my competitive brands?
• -       How important is my product category to them?
• -       What is the frequency of purchase of consumption of store visit?
• -       What are their motivations?

“Empty Box Syndrome – Whenever something goes empty, you go out and buy it” 

Consumer Panels

• -       On a daily basis a representative sample of the national population, equipped with how scanners indicate their product purchasers.
• -       In addition to the information provided by the bar code the panel member indicates the price, the quantity purchased, the purchase date and the total amount spent.

  Key Measures

• -       Options consumer purchases, volume and value
• -        Penetration (percentage of households buying)
• -        Brand weight of the purchase (average bought per household)
• -        Weight of purchase
• -        Average spend per household
• -        Frequency of purchase
• -        Loyalty/ repeat purchases (No. Of buyers purchasing twice or more)
• -        Buyers purchasing on offer and by offer type

Tracking and Barometers  

• -       A continuous basis quantitative survey to measure a range attitudinal variables
• -       Taking into account all the competitive brands of the market to allow comparisons
• -       Barometer is a lighter version of tracking

  

   Key Measures

• -       Brand Awareness – Spontaneous, Prompted, Top of Mind (summation of all these is Total Awareness)
• -       Purchase Behavior – Regular, Occasional, Purchase initiators
• -       Advertising – Spontaneous, Prompted, Proven recall

Usage and Attitude

• -       Quantitative survey based on face to face interview
• -       A basic and heavy study conducted generally every two years
• -       Aim is to understand consumer market

Key Measures

• -       Perception
• -       Segmentation
• -       Expectations
• -       Evocation, tenacity of communication
• -       Who in the household is buying and what for? 
• 
  

     

Steps in Formulating Design – Gita Bamzai as on 23/10/2013

Types of Communication Research

è        Undertaking an analysis of each element in the communication process 

-       Source analysis

-       Message analysis

-       Media analysis

-       Audience analysis

      Research Process: Getting Started

Researcher as a detective seeking answers to questions and also to answer the following before you even begin with your research, like:

-       Answer exists but is unknown to you

-       If the answer is not known or available, conduct research to find the answer.

Scientific Study must be:

-       Detached

-       Objective

-       Unemotional

-       Non – ethical

-       Reliable and verifiability (being the two most important characteristics of scientific research)

Research follows traditions and procedures:

• 1    Start with a question
• 2     Formulate a hypothesis
• 3.   Use reasons and experience to refine the hypothesis or research question. 

       Identifying what is to be inquired?

        Why – Cause and Effect relationship.

Independent Variables => Class, SEC, Education, Gender

List population in each geographical area…

-       Randomize your sample.

Creativity by Sam Rufus as on 21/10/013

"In research you first have to find out what that it is that you've  to find out"

"Very difficult to change attitude but you can alter behaviour"

"Research is like a lamp post, not for us to lean on them but for light"

3 D's of thinking Disciplined -> Different -> and Deliberate. 

"More the volume of knowledge, more the area of the unknown"

"Advertising messages should be created for and directed at, the heavy using and high yield consumers in the category"

"Don't get people to try the product by convincing them to love the brand, get them to love the brand by convincing them to try the product"

Message >> Change in Attitude .>> Change in Behaviour 

"Strategy should evolve out of the marketplace, not in the antiseptic environment of an ivory tower" - Al Ries  

Account Management by Shruthi Jain as on 19/10/2013

We are here as a catalyst between the consumer and the brand, that is precisely what we as a communication/advertising professional.

"Magic lies in the products" - Bill Bernbach


The Interface/Process

- Premium Ready Made Garments (PRMG) had seen a few years of rapid growth.
- Essentially for formals to be worn to office
- Formals defined in merchandising terms as a blue, white and strips



Allen Solly

-> Anglo - American brand that did not enjoy any franchise in India
-> Fashion forward brand in merchandise terms, in bold colours, every fits and in unusual fabric types
-> Priced in the premium segment


The Problem

-> Allen Solly did not fit the existing perception of a PRMG
-> The consumer was willing to pay high prices only for garments that were worn at formal occasions



Target Audience

-> Successful executives, self employed and businessman. Existing PRMG
-> Early adopters from relatively more relaxed workplaces like software and advertising
-> Psychographics : experimentative, ambitious, self assured


Communication Strategy  

-> Redefine the category itself - expand, expand the definition of formals to include then Allan Sollys unique merchandise.


Creative Solution

-> Use attitude statements to derive the 'different perception'
-> Use the merchandise effectively to make the point
-> Bring in the pro


Results

-> 238% value growth in 1995, 92% in 1996 and green 100%
-> High brand recall scores in the target audience
-> Allen Solly shows ever increasing acceptability
-> High loyalty points

"Great brands are made when great relationships happen with creatives and account planning"

"Your route map is decided by your research"

"You need to know your product and your consumers too"

 

Assignment : Create  A Case Study for Dissecting a (given) Brand...

Basic Construct 

Brand Definition
Marketing Objectives
Role of Advertising
Competition

Brand Definition : A vivid expression of the brand and it's real personality.

Marketing Aims : What is the problem/opportunity the marketing initiative has to tackle

Role of Advertising : What are we realistically trying to achieve through advertising

The Competition : Who is competing with our brand

The Target Market : Who are we talking to? What is the insight that can lead to an advertising opportunity.

Where are we ? : What is the brand and it's competitors position in the consumer minds?

Where we going? : How do we want our target to react/alter his opinion after he's seen the advertisement (not after he's bought the product)

The Buttons : What is the single, brilliant, simple, something that will bring about the change in the consumers opinion about the brand.

Support : Facts that support the button.