Anish Dhopeshwarkar
“The aim of selling is to satisfy customer’s needs, the aim of marketing is to figure out his needs”
” Philip Kotler
Marketing is that phenomena, which bridges the gap between producer and the supplier. A good R&D will help the firm to get a competitive edge over its competitors, a robust production process will help it to optimize its production, but at the end of the day, it will all boil down to how the customer apprehends the product, and the product’s success will be measured in its market share in the total market.
Clotaire Rapaille was considered, undisputed lord of this world of marketing who guided various brand campaigns. He entered the industry when it was just born, where ads were basically setting up hoarding of company’s products and distributing pamphlets. But when he left, he left behind a legacy which was up for grabs by the new generation of marketing managers and designers, to carry it forward.
Here is a sneak-peek into the marketing world bringing before you some epic examples of successful marketing campaigns
In the 1950s Marlboro brand was considered a mild-ladies cigarette brand, with not much popularity. Then the company came to this concept of “ Marlboro Man’, a white husky cowboy, standing in rain, with a marlboro cigarette in his mouth,showing ultra-masculine characteristics, completely changed the perspective of the company, and in the coming years it saw as high as 300% growth in its sales!
In the year 2005 the company 3M, came out with this glass which they claimed was unbreakable. So in order to prove their point they piled up huge stack of dollars inside a container made of glass and put it on display at bus stand, and threw a challenge to the people. If you break the glass, then the money is yours. And then there was a huge rush to win the prize money, but at the end of the day real victor was the company who very well proved their point!
During 1970s Nestle cautiously entered Japanese market, with its coffee products but it failed to grasp the demands of the people and its initial launch plan miserably failed. The top level management again went back to drawing board and hired Clotaire Raphille, who came up with simple solution- introduce the taste of coffee to tea loving japs with the means of toffees! Fast forward to today Japan is world’s 4th largest coffee consuming country in the world!
Sensing the popular pop culture, inorder to attract more and more young crowd Zomato came up with this large scaled billboards campaign, where billboards containing rhetorical and sarcastic messages was put up across various cities of India.
During 1900s the idea of using a toothpaste was not highly regarded in the American society. The consumption model of most of the population had drastically shifted to consumption of Sugary, high fat products. John Hopkins who had previously ran campaigns to sell beer, soap was convinced by one of his friend that his product called “pepsodent” ( a teeth cleansing powder) was going to be next hit. But those were times where the door-to-door tooth-powder salesmen were turned down and it was a gloomy period for the industry. When first world war started, and soldiers were recruited in the military “teeth hygiene” became a major security concern for the country. So Hopkins, seasoned marketeer came up with this ad:
“Just run your tongue across your teeth, you’ll find a film “ that’s what makes your teeth look ‘off color’ and invited decay”
Another read, featuring smiling beauties:
“Note how many pretty teeth are seen everywhere. Millions are using a method of teeth cleaning. Why would any woman have dingy film on her teeth? Pepsodent removed the film.”
