Don’t sell, solve

Why do you buy anything? You buy a bottle of water because you are thirsty, you buy an iPod to carry your music around, you buy a luxury car to trade up. The list can go on and on. The basic idea behind buying anything is to solve a problem. This sounds so simple. Then [...]

Linking ideas to product

If we were playing Jeopardy, the right answer would have been: “What is branding?”
Beijing Olympics 2008 is one of the classical examples of branding at a global scale from the recent times. China spent north of $40 billion to link the idea of progressiveness and development to the country. The infrastructure improvements, the pollution control, the [...]

It’s all about the perceived value

One thing that counts a lot for any product is its perceived value. Customers do not buy the product, they pay for the value that the product provides them. The more the perceived value of the product, less relevant is the price tag on it and vice versa. The concept of perceived value reconfirms the importance of de-commoditization. Commodity by [...]

How many vs. Who

Global advertising is a more than $600 billion industry that is growing year-over-year. This endorses the fact that in today’s competitive environment, the value of customer connection is more than ever before. Companies go to great lengths to make sure they connect with their customers, be it using old mediums like television and newspapers or new mediums like [...]

De-commoditization

Selling commodities is hard, or should I say, selling anything as a commodity is hard. But what is a commodity when it comes to marketing? Is water a commodity? I think we have discussed this extensively in the past, so let’s move on to something else that looks like a commodity. How about coffee? Coffee [...]

Applying the water theory elsewhere

I love the World of the water marketing (please don’t stop reading the post categorizing this to be another display of my obsession with water…I have a point here). We can adopt the principles of water marketing successfully in many diverse industries. Also, correlating the water industry with other industries might justify some buying decisions [...]

Will just water sell?

Since writing the post about Evian bottled water a few months back (and spending generously to purchase bottled water during my recent trip to Europe), I have been following the bottled water industry more closely. This is one industry that fascinates me with its innovative marketing and advertising practices. If we take the bottled water industry [...]

Is it just a bottle of water?

A couple of years back, I came across a wonderful “advertisement”. Actually I was completely blown away when I came to know that it was an ad (I thought it might be a preview of Pixar’s version of Aquaman or something ;)).
I am talking about the Epica award winning ad for Evian bottled water where [...]