Tag: What’s In a Name Creatives

Algorithm Penguin 4.0: All you need to know about the cute sounding master Algorithm by Google.

So Google Penguin is an algorithm that’s been with us for a few years now, designed tocombat link spam specifically and to make internet more users friendly, relevant and qualitative. After years of saying this was coming, Algorithm Penguin 4.0 was finally rolled out on Friday, September 23^rd It is now real-time in Google’s algorithm, Google’s core algorithm, which means that it’s constantly updating.

Impact of Penguin in the past :

• Penguin 1.0 was launched on 24^th April, 2012 and impacted 3.1% of websites. Aiming on curbing “Web spam” like keyword stuffing, cloaking, link schemes, or purposeful duplication of the content.

• Penguin 1.1 came on 26th May, 2012. This update was specially made for those who were hit severely as many already started questioning whether it made the results worse. However, sites that think they have been mistakenly penalized were allowed a web form to inform the same to Google. Simultaneously, the Penguin 1.1 update was released and called to be a “date refresh” process that impacted less than 1.1% of English language websites.
• Penguin 1.2 was released on 5^th October, 2012. Which had an impact on 0.3% of all the queries.
• Penguin 2.0 was released on 22^nd May, 2013. Penguin 2.0 was considered to be a new algorithm to curb bad linking and spam. More than 2.3% of search queries were affected by this update.
• Penguin 2.1 was released on 4^th October, 2013. This fifth installment if Penguin Algorithm was an improvement to the second generation spam filtering tech was also a relatively minor change affecting less than 1%.
• Penguin 3.0 was released on 17^th October, 2014 impacting 1% of the results. This update specifically targeted sites that still were violating Google’s linking policies.

• Penguin 4.0 :
  • As we stated earlier, Algorithm Penguin 4.0 is designed tocombat link spam specifically and to make internet more users friendly, relevant and qualitative.
  • The list of sites affected by Penguin was only periodically refreshed at the same time.
  • According to Google… “Once a webmaster considerably improved their site and its presence on the internet, many of Google’s algorithms would take that into consideration very fast, but others, like Penguin, needed to be refreshed.” But now, Penguin data is refreshed in real time, so any changes will be made as soon as the affected page has been re-crawled and re-indexed.
  • Google also states that it not going to comment on future refreshes.
  • Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.
  • So any penalties will be delivered to a specific page rather than an entire domain, which seems much fairer in the long run.
• S – At What’s In A Name we specialize in creating state of the art SEO friendly Websites. For more info visit (*whatsinaname*)

 

 

Most of us love travelling, be it business or pleasure. The idea behind visiting a new city and staying in the comforts of a Hotel room brings nothing but great ease to both our mind and body. The primary role played in our travel is that of the hotels we reside in. You cannot deny how rest assured you feel seeing a bed neatly laid out only for you, clean bathrooms, and other services assuring you of a comfortable stay.

Hotel  Formule1 corrects the “Chalta Hai” attitude and aims to end the age old notion by delivering what they believe is every customer’s right. Provisions such as free high speed Wi-Fi, 24/7 safety and security, sound proof rooms, comfortable beds and access controlled rooms and floors.

The #ChaltaHaiNoMore campaign is driven by the traditional “devil may care” nonchalant attitude that most of us carry around. Hotel Formule1 calls to break free from the habit by replying back to the “Chalta Hai” attitude with… #ChaltaHaiNoMore.

The video now live on YouTube highlights this element effectively. The idea behind the campaign is to put across a message that the “Chalta Hai” attitude needs to be discouraged. Hotel Formule1 stands up to this cause, by facilitating provisions and amenities that promise a pleasant and rest assured stay at its hotel.

It’s time to stand up and say #ChaltaHaiNoMore.

Overview:

Zip.in is an online Supermarket, based out of Hyderabad. Until recently, it was operational in Hyderabad only. But soon it will expand to other cities across the country. The website has over 8,000 listed products that includes categories like fruits, vegetables, frozen food, pet care, organic food, stationery, essentials and many more. The BETA website went live in November 2014, and the final website went live in December 2014. Then began the 360 Degrees Branding effort to take the brand ahead.

Challenges:

The first challenge was to strengthen the business segment. That’s because a significant percentage of people were either unaware, or skeptical about an option to shop for groceries online.

The second challenge was the fact that there were quite a few customers who were unhappy with the service & products that they received from competition. It was almost impossible to get them to try online grocery shopping again.

The next challenge was that Zip.in delivery was available in limited locations only.

Finally, we had to spread brand awareness, define its positioning, reach out to the right people, increase website traffic, focus on conversions, and make it all happen with limited budgets. Hence, a 360 Degrees Branding Strategy was formulated.

Target Audience:

We were talking to a huge range of audiences. But our primary audience is a working couple that lives separately. They realise the importance of having good and wholesome meals. However, as both husband and wife are working, it becomes difficult for them to buy groceries regularly.

The secondary audience is the single, corporate employees who are either lazy or don’t have time to buy groceries; thanks to their erratic and long shifts. They are our secondary audience because these would be small ticket size customers. And that’s because they would mostly survive on Maggi (of course, when it was being sold), canned juices, bread, butter, etc.

The tertiary audience is not direct consumers, but influencers. These could be teenagers who would help us spread the word to the decision makers – their parents. These also include retired senior citizens who would help us spread awareness and share the information with their children.

With this we were clear about “Whom” we wanted to talk to. But the question was “What” should we talk about? Once we were clear on our target audience, we decided to understand their pain. We began thinking like customers. We also did some backend research to know how the competition was treating customers. After putting all this together, we came up with a 360 Degrees Branding Strategy.
 

Communication Guidelines:

We were sure that our 360 Degrees Branding Strategy should comprise the following:

Our communication should be simple, and it should be easily understood both by a techie and a retired senior citizen.

Creativity is not the most important thing here. That’s because in a bid to be overtly creative, we didn’t want to move away from our objective of simplicity. Making sure that we take the message home.

The 360 Degrees Branding communication should establish the business line clearly. This is for those who don’t really know how it works.

The communication should work as a confirmation tool to those who are just at the fence. They want to try the option of online grocery buying, but are slightly doubtful.

The communication should make use of the competition analysis that we did. As the competition had captured a greater market share, it was important to understand how they have peeved the customers, and how we can give a believable assurance to these customers.

Also, it was important to make sure that the layout of the campaign was standardised, and that it stands out in a clutter of Newspaper ads, hoardings, online banners, etc. So, achieving high recall was imperative.

Finally, we wanted to make sure that the communication connects with the audiences. They should be able to visualise themselves as customers of www.zip.in. So, we did decide to keep it real too.

PS: Of course, the content was tweaked to suit various channels, but certain things were retained to establish connectivity. The idea was to benefit from integration. So, now we knew “how” our communication should be. But it was time to decide “What” our communication should be. And we came up with the following 360 Degrees Branding Strategy.

Print Campaign:

Brand Video: Produced by Namesake Productions

Radio Jingle: 

  

Digital Ads:

360 Degrees Branding – Media Channels:

News Paper Ads – Times Of India, The Hindu

OOH – Hitec City, Gachibowli, Kukkatpally, Uppal, ECIL

Fliers – Somajiguda, Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Madhapur, Hitec City, Kondapur, Gachibowli, etc.

Radio – Radio Mirchi

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – On Page & Off Page Optimization, Directory Listing, Products Listing, Link Building, Goal Setting & more

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Google AdWords, Web Banners, Blog

Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Facebook, Twitter

YouTube Marketing – Video Content Production & Promotion

Retargeting – Google & Facebook Retargeting Ads

The Results – 360 Degrees Branding:

64.3% rise in website traffic.

38% increase in orders.

33% increase in average order ticket size (price)

19% decrease in bounce rate, indicating better traffic quality.

98% customer satisfaction ratings re-iterating that every branding effort needs to be teemed up with a good product or service.

For questions regarding advertising of your product / service,
please click here.

Ever wondered what the first Indian advertisement looked like? When Englishman James Augustus Hickey started making losses on his newspaper (India’s first) business in 1780, he resorted to advertising . The newspaper didn’t survive for long. But India was gifted a terrific new medium of communication. The first Indian ads mainly revolved around simple & direct messages. And featured a mailing address. Times have drastically changed since then.

Continue reading “Advertising Agencies: Ever wondered how the best do it?”

Deepika Padukone surely is one of the fastest rising stars in the history of Indian cinema. But “My Choice Deepika” is what she will be called henceforth. Why? Well, her latest video has changed the definition of online viral videos. There was a time when online videos were celebrated for the mere fact that they were unique. They were loved because they were fresh. They were shared because they deserved it. That’s when they’d become viral. But those were the days in the past. Today, videos are created around sensitive subjects with only one  goal – get some mileage to those involved. Subjects are no longer seamlessly gelled. They are forced into each other. More like in-serial or in-film brand integration. Hope you remember how naturally (pun-intended) Shahrukh Khan talks about the features of Nokia Lumnia in Chennai Express. Or you’d at least remember how situational (pun-intended) was Hrithik Roshan’s dialogue that comprised Mountain Dew’s Slogan in Bang Bang. It’s more of a success-formula-phase that even Bollywood is going through. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But using sensitive issues to get some mileage is a form of dirty advertising. More so, if it’s done by an established star like My Choice Deepika!

So, what really went wrong with My Choice Deepika?

Formulae work great in our country. Just because a serious video about a rape victim was banned, and yet managed to jolt the nation, it’s taken for granted that a few thousand videos around subjects related to women will make it big in the online world. And when a video like that stars Deepika Padukone (A.K.A My Choice Deepika), it has to be a runaway hit. Well, may be, we, as an audience, are not as smart as the one in a developed nation. But we are not dumb either. And that’s exactly why we turned down this video. Yes. The video has been getting so much flak that people are addressing her as “My Choice Deepika”. So what really went wrong with the video?

• It comes across as dramatised & artificial (Thanks to the director; Homi Adajania).
• It doesn’t stop at being preachy. It begins to dictate. And then threatens.
• The video is contradicting. If it’s a woman’s choice, let her decide. She doesn’t need obnoxious examples to understand that. She’s smart. She knows what’s best for her.
• It’s okay if the video was pro-women. We all respect that. But this was Anti-men.
• Finally, people understand when a subject moves from an undertone of gender-equality to gender-superiority!

Well, this video was recent. So it’s fresh in our memories. But if we rewind a little, we’ll understand that there’s more to this. This video featured the same star who’d come out in the open to talk about her depression, a few weeks back. Come to think of it, looks like that episode was a doctored one too.

Picture this. A critical health issue. A fresh subject as not many people have openly spoken about it. A topic that is safe. Well, that’s because even if it doesn’t work, it wouldn’t backfire. And Voila! Here’s the perfect recipe for a brand recall. What’s next? As expected the country empathises with her. She manages to move us emotionally. Most of us begin to even sympathise with. Of course, it doesn’t stop at that. People would now want to see more of this star. They would want to know how their once-depressed star looks on the big screen now. Hence, objective met. It’s pretty evident that My Choice Deepika’s PR machinery has been working very hard. Only if her script writers worked harder, her movies would have some content at least. And she didn’t have to explore this dirty side of advertising. But then that’s not her choice we guess!!

To check out advertising that’s not dirty, click here.
To watch a few videos that don’t dramatise sensitive issues, click here.

As one of the leading digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad, we understand a brand’s need to standardise its communication across various channels. The perfect integration of its print and digital efforts can help it move ahead in the race. There are quite a few digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad. But only few of them understand the importance of seamless integration of a brand’s voice – online and offline.

What do top digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad, or elsewhere do:

Unfortunately, customers have limited knowledge on the term digital. And they are mislead, because they want to. Having unrealistic goals could be a way of pressurising various digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad or elsewhere. But that seldom helps a brand. The kind of work that various digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad, and across the globe, do is more of a science. It’s NOT magic. There are algorithms, there’s research, there’s content, there’s strategy, there’s competitive analysis, there’s execution, there’s monitoring, there’s progress and then results begin to show up. This doesn’t happen overnight. It happens over countless nights!

Make sure your digital marketing efforts remain consistent:

In today’s ever-changing, fast-paced world, consistency is even more important than a great beginning. When the efforts of your Digital Marketing Agency tend to show up, give them more support. Help them remain consistent. If you begin to think that you are a smart businessman, and it’s time to do some cost-cutting on this front, you’re terribly wrong. Cost cutting is great. But it needs to happen at the right place. The moment you lose momentum on your digital marketing efforts, you begin to slide down the chart. You might stay on top for some time. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be there for ever. So getting on top means it’s a great time to re-look at goals. And create some new ones as well.

Ask any of these leading digital marketing agencies in Hyderabad, or anywhere else. And this is exactly what you’ll hear. They’ll swear by some common practices like consistency and standardisation.

The idea of communication, advertisement, branding or marketing isn’t really new to the world, and yet it is. The gamut of creating an ad, for a product or a service, used to be more or less restricted in terms of INFORMATION.The Best brand Communication company has now been multiplied by hundred, and therefore has more than one outlet. Communicating about a brand today is to spread information about its value, price, reliability, popularity and a lot more.

The best brand communication company in India targets audiences mostly by using paid media such as television, radio, Internet, print, OOH, etc. The success of a brand purely depends on the way it is communicated across channels through different territories.

To simplify further, let’s see the evolution of communication for some products by the best branding companies in India:

Cadbury:

From celebrating little joys of life to enriching each Indian festival today, it has certainly come a long way. Their positioning that transformed over the years from “Kuch khass hai zindagi mein” to “Kuch meetha ho jaye”, says it all.

Story – Cadbury was introduced in the market as a chocolate for children; it later went on to target adults. Over the years their tag lines have changed. Their advertisements of-late have had a shift in focus; on Indian customs and traditions. This was an effort to compete and later replace the traditional sweets (Mithai) category that the Indian culture is synonymous with. In 2003, when the brand faced allegations of worms found in the product, Cadbury quickly came up with an ad campaign featuring Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan along with a revamped poly-flow packaging and won back the confidence of its consumers.

Nirma:

Another age-old brand that most of us would remember from our childhood memories during the times of Doordarshan. The brand was synonymous with its model – Deepikaji – who was a typical housewife of that generation. From a typical housewife washing her husband’s shirt as part of her chores to women helping an ambulance out from a puddle, depicting gender equality and women power, this one’s an interesting brand transformation episode too.

Story – Over the years Nirma has acquired a very strong threshold in the market, being sold in even the most remote parts of the country. What started as just a small side business hit the market, and turned to be a billion dollar Company. However, in recent times, their target customers have changed from middle class to upper-middle class families.

Maggi:

Not just for the hunger pangs in the evenings anymore but happiness every Indian can afford – clearly stating the stature of most Indian families.

Story – The introduction of this brand was to solely be featured among an evening snack such as samosa, pakora or masala peanuts. A snack that could be easily made, and consumed in the evenings. There was a time when the sales of Maggi dropped due to the introduction of Top Ramen and other instant noodles, but none of these me-too brands could garner as much success as Maggi. Perhaps, they had the first mover advantage. After certain allegations on Maggi not being good for health, Nestle started aiming at introducing more health-effective variants under the same brand such as Atta noodles and Oats noodles. This diversification worked for them. Perhaps, it was an input that the best brand communication would have given. It was part of a global strategy to give their brand a health and wellness outlook.

Best brand communication company – Hire One!

These are a few brands being endorsed by some known & little known agencies. In fact, with brand like these, whether it’s the best brand communication company in India or a bustling new agency on the block, the opportunities for brand strategy & innovation are enormous. With changing times, these brands made sure that they keep a tab on their target audience and communicate accordingly; they made sure to bring in the required positive change in communication, as and when required.

With the invention of the World Wide Web, everything is globalized. Thus, each brand has the power to make it big. Obviously, the best brand communication company in India will add the much-required zing. When you put the right word out, and target the correct audience persistently, your brand can do wonders. The loyalty of any brand, of course, needs to be justified over a period of time. The good thing, however, is the fact that the generation today is always ready to experiment.

The best brand communication company in India needs to drive people, and the most famous companies that already have a strong hold can do so by selecting a few major social causes, fusing them along with their brand communication; this almost always works.

The last few years have revolutionised digital exposure in India. The way we communicate, with the brands around, has taken a huge leap. Today, the world has moved towards information that’s real-time. And that’s exactly why the amount of content that is consumed digitally is way beyond what one can imagine. The last decade has been the age of social networks. And if we go by the last 4 years, the current decade is touted to be the decade of mobile. From Motion Posters to Print Motion to Geo-targeting Mobile Push to Augmented Reality. It’s all happening out there. Only time will tell the fate of this decade. But if we were to look at the aftermath of the previous decade (and a couple of years more), apart from a lot of good, there’s also a flip side to this erratic world of online communication. Each channel has got it’s own challenges. And all these put together are being thrown at brand owners and marketers today.

Digital Exposure – Facebook – A.K.A fakebook

There have been claims that Facebook is falsifying likes and accounts. Well, if statistics are to be believed, around 33% of Facebook accounts are fake accounts. The strategy seems believable. That’s because they are trying to monetize every pixel on the website. Incidentally, ads are now available in video format too. Their sole purpose of connecting the world, however, is losing its charm. With advertisers spending big bucks on the website, the pressure for showing results is high. The most highly misused term “ROI” is now the cynosure of most client-agency conversations that revolve around the digital world. And clients seldom understand that low “ROI” could be the issue with their product or service. It could also be a result of too much interference into what external Professionals that they have hired are strategising. The expectations are sky high. And so is the pressure. In a game like this, Facebook has the big need to at least show higher likes to pages or posts. Once advertisers / brands see this ROI in the form of likes, they begin to advertise more; that simply means, they spend more. The cycle then becomes vicious. To achieve this, Facebook has been apparently falsifying likes. So, next time you see your name popping out on a page you’ve never heard of before, don’t be surprised. Facebook would have saved you that effort with liking on your behalf!

With a strategy like this, saturation is certainly around the corner for this mammoth Social Networking Platform. The attempts of Facebook to buy other growing and more promising mobile platforms like Snapchat (a photo-messaging application that actually turned down a $3 Billion offer from Mr. Zuckerberg) have gone down the drain.

Clients of Digital Agencies, with all the digital exposure in India, however, still consider likes to be the only, and the most important, metric to gauge the success of a an online strategy. Budgets are also allocated to meet just that need of theirs. This half-knowledge that brand owners collate from the Internet does more harm than good.

Twitter – Bad clone of an average original

With a look and feel that’s dead and gone, it shows Facebook’s heavy influence on the design team. What’s worse is that they couldn’t even copy an existing model properly. There have been several complaints of users who’ve been trying to find out the right size of the cover image for personal profiles and brand pages; the content area is confused with the image size. The result? A confused user!

Apart from all this, they are far behind Facebook, in terms of active users (excluding the fake profiles on FB). But their CEO however, ridicules Facebook’s mechanism to collect accurate data from their servers. He feels that though their user base is less, their active users are pretty good. He also feels that Twitter has done an awesome job in terms of monetising the micro-blogging site.

Despite all this, one thing is evident that Twitter is no hurry. They are steady with their growth plans. And they don’t intend to inject users and brands with this steroid called advertising.

LinkedIn – Monster enters facebook

Initially, it remained true to it’s intent of connecting the world… professionally. Since then it has become a big hub for job hunting and job seeking; people also send random requests to unknown honchos, CEOs, HR Representatives, etc., to hire them. It’s like a Job Portal (like Monster.com) going Social. But soon it began to bring in flavours from all corners. With options of Like and Comment, it’s got an undertone of a typical Facebook mechanism too. As if all that was not enough, they decided to come up with Brand Business pages a la Facebook. Even email (LinkedIn calls it Inmail though) was not spared. It began to not just offer free email services to profile holders but sell them at a premium too. From advertising banners to specific target-based hiring ads, it’s on roll. The options seem to be a bit tad expensive to the Indian Marketers who thrive on digital as a medium though.

While all this was happening, LinkedIn did not take into account the make-money-by-taking-this-survey population. And that actually turned out to put the Professional Networking leader in a catch 22 situation. Looks like, today, that’s become the key purpose of the website. And that’s primarily because digital exposure in India is still limited. A big chunk of the population is yet to make the optimum use of these mediums.

Google Plus – The white collared mafia

This is the search engine giant’s attempt to get a big share of the social networking base. From having special contracts with celebrities to making it mandatory for businesses registering even with Google Maps, it has done it all. In fact, the latest search engine update called Humming Bird, re-iterates how the search engine giant will use it’s muscle power to showcase your business, only if you have an active Google Plus account. Now that’s more like white-collared blackmailing!

Unfortunately, its growing numbers are more inclined towards new user base, for obvious reasons. Number of active users is still dubious.

E-mailers – Junk we ought to clean

We get a zillion junk emails everyday. Ever wondered how all this works? Obviously, there are some that we get because we share our email IDs. But most of these are from unknown and irrelevant sources. There are some who’ve opened shops of selling e-mail databases. They get some of these from interconnected sources who sell a good chunk to them. But then there are other ways that they’ve mastered too. From luring people outside malls with holiday packages to making phone calls with other promotions, they’ve got all the tricks up their sleeves, to fill up their email and other contact information databases.

Excessive e-mailers have become the norm. And most of this junk leads where it actually should – Spam Folder. But looks like marketers are happy with the illusion of reaching out to their potential customers through this medium.

Websites – Not rocket science; it’s a science

A website is your virtual store. And in most cases it is the first thing an associate, a potential employee, investor or your customer sees. The importance of a nice and informative website is ignored by business owners. With the mushrooming of web development companies, and more lately, online DIY (Do-It-Yourself) portals that promise websites for a few hundred bucks, this aspect of the digital world is the most distorted. With common templates that smaller web development companies or freelancers create for a brand, they clearly position it into a “me-too” segment. Not that a fancy website is always the need. But a website that doesn’t complement the business, a website that doesn’t elevate a business, can categorically be described as junk! This is one section where people do put their digital exposure in India, to use. But that population is very very limited. They however, feel that aping an international website is the best way to go about things.

Business owners, however, tend to take this up as a profitable deal as they save a few thousands. What they don’t evaluate is the big hit that their brand has taken in the process.

Blogs – Ignored kid of a loving mother

The most effective, and unfortunately, the most ignored area of the digital world is Blogging. Marketers avoid it as it involves a lot more time, effort and domain knowledge. Of course, the reason also is because clients are not willing to pay for this effort of theirs. Clients avoid it because they don’t see any value in writing paragraphs on subjects that may or may not directly connect with them.

The blogging community, however, is moving on an upward scale. In fact, they are the most sought-after bunch of people who’re paid to write stuff for brands, and in some cases individuals too. But the flip side here is the increase in reviews and blogs that are highly biased. Brands that began blogging for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) purposes only, end up publishing blogs that are nothing more than a distorted set of keywords they wish to show-up with. Only if people had enough digital exposure in India, this would have been the key weapon of a lot of digital strategies.

Web Banners – Permanent sticky notes

This has become one of the most common ways of monetising a website, some of them charging a fortune to lease out a few pixels. In fact, its cost can be directly compared to real-estate costs in some places. Brands, on the other hand, are not leaving any stone unturned to take undue advantage of this option. They use these banner spaces to promote their product or service even if there’s a heavy irrelevance in the aligned brand. That’s where a limited digital exposure comes in play.

With content consumption being so high in the digital space, audiences tend to get irked by these forced ads.

Retargeting – Stalker you can’t ignore

A year old phenomenon in the country, it does prove beneficial to trick the audiences online into making a purchase. In fact, it works great with impulsive buyers. But it has certainly left a huge section of innocent audience guessing. They have no clue how a specific product or service that they had browsed on a specific website ages back, still shows up on small windows across most of the websites they visit. They don’t understand that some times even after purchasing the product, the website is till trying to sell it to them with customised discounts and offers. It’s like a magnet that’s stuck on them. Wherever they go, what ever they browse, these products seldom leave them alone. Well, blame it on cookies!

All in all, this is a great development, provided it’s not overused. With the limited digital exposure, it could even freak people out.

Digital exposure in India is growing to understand that the World Wide Web will be
content with good content only.

With so many online channels at the disposal of a brand owner or a marketer, achieving the perfect mix is going to be one hell of a task. In fact, with the haywire digital exposure in India, things get all the more difficult.  And when one has to show results, it’s a different ball game altogether. But there is a way out. And it’s the simplest thing to do. At the end of the day, it’s a proven fact that unique content has always been the front-runner. Websites and marketers do realize the importance of innovative and fresh content. Audiences across the globe have always acknowledged such content. Hence, investing time, money and effort in creating content will go a long way in this ever-changing digital world.

When we start or run a business, we get so involved in so many areas that we tend to take the most crucial aspect for granted – Branding (Advertising). Whether it’s a product or a service, the role of branding is way beyond what people normally perceive. For instance, a great product that’s not promoted will soon become extinct. The flip side however, is that a bad product that’s heavily promoted will vanish even faster! That reveals the importance of a brand, its promotion strategy and the branding partner. Though it’s an art to get the best out of your Branding Partner, it certainly lies in your hands. Follow these 5 quick tips for an optimum output:

Milestone is synonymous to words like business, organizations and entrepreneurs. It is what liter is to liquid – a measure. It is like any degree or credential that you’d have; more of a brand value of an organization and an individual both. We all know the dictionary meaning of the word “milestone”. In fact, this word is overtly used in a zillion places (read presentations, annual meetings, client reviews, appraisals, etc.). We hear this word so often that it almost puts us to sleep. But have you ever wondered on what could be the milestone of the Best Advertising Agency in Hyderabad?

The Best Advertising Agency In Hyderabad:

Celebrating milestones is certainly of the best things an organization and a leader can do. It peps-up the environment, boosts the productivity of its people and helps the organization climb up the ladder. But in this quantitative world, where every conversation has to lead to a visible gain, every meeting has to lead to a materialistic conclusion, every penny has to lead to a negotiation, we tend to place our milestones with an approach that is too narrow, and sometimes hollow; we place them where the results are. The bests don’t do that. Specially, the Best Advertising Agency in Hyderabad would never!

An organization is never about a single person. As much as you call yourself the leader who’s done it all, it is always about a set of people. Despite the fact that you’ve been responsible to bring these people on-board. Entrepreneurs tend to get way too aggressive while placing their milestones. At times, they are so aggressive that they tend to ignore any other person who’s associated with this milestone. The situation then looks something like this – A leader who’s seeing a milestone clearly, has conveyed it to his team as clearly, is moving at a fast pace towards it and is also pushing his team with the same force. His team, however, just pretends to be moving with as much zeal. And what comes next is a reality check. After a half yearly review, the leader along with his team is nowhere closer to the milestone!

Well, the reason was that the team was never in the consensus with the leader. They felt that the milestone he set was too unrealistic. It’s good to be crazy. But to be the best, you’ll need to be a little realistic too. Unfortunately, in this case the Best Advertising Agency was not.

Now, you may argue that you’ll never be able to set a milestone that would be accepted by every single person of your core team. This is possibly a realistic and a common scenario too. But have you ever heard of the word majority?

Exactly! When the majority of your core team decides to agree with your milestone(s), the probability of you, as a company, achieving it is way higher.

At least, this way you know that more than 50% of your team is with you. In fact, you can get them to set the milestones for themselves. This way they’d be taking more ownership of reaching these milestones too.

This is an unorthodox way of placing milestones. The only difference is the fact that the probability of achieving these milestones is a bit higher. The flip side however, is that your core team might not necessarily be as aggressive as you are. Hence, it might work out milestones that are less aggressive. But they’d certainly be more achievable. Here, the choice is yours; you can either set milestones that look great on paper but might not necessarily sound realistic and achievable to your team, or you can let your core team set simpler but highly achievable milestones.

In our day-to-day rush to meet business challenges and work towards innovation, we tend to forget that milestones can be placed differently.

In business terms a milestone is perceived as a destination. Very few leaders feel it’s a journey. But one of the most effective placements of a milestone is somewhere in between.

To evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy of placing a milestone, an Art Director of the Best Advertising Agency, invited a few creative writers. These writers were divided into two teams – Team A and Team B. Both teams were given a brief to work on a launch campaign for one of its clients. This was the launch of a new energy drink – Octane. The client wanted to position their drink in the premium segment. They were well aware of the existing market leader in this segment. Due to smaller marketing budgets, they wanted something that was not just a strong launch campaign, but would also help them place their product in the premium segment. The writers wore their thinking caps, and began to pen down some interesting ideas. After a long brainstorming session, both teams realized that they had to create an aspirational value for the brand. They also decided to focus on their target audience who’d in-turn become brand loyalists. The teams then started working independently.

One of the creative communication ideas by Team A was to create an in-the-face ad concept to take the market leader head-on. The headline for this concept was “Wings are for birds. Real men fly with Octane!”

Team B, on the other hand, worked on a concept that was subtle but equally strong. The headline for their concept was “Octane – Packed with NEWclear Energy.“

Both the concepts were shared with the client. But the Creative Director of the advertising agency chose to reward one of the teams (Team A), the moment the concept was shared with him. However, he was not too convinced about the concept that Team B shared. He knew it was great too but he decided to wait until he heard from the client.

After a few days, the client got back saying that they liked the concept by Team B better. In fact, they shared a very valid reason for the same. They felt that though the first concept was strong, it clearly divided their audience and boiled their product down to an only-for-men product.

The Creative Director then realized that he had misjudged the client and the idea that was shared by Team B. He, later, decided to call Team B and reward them too. By now, both the teams were rewarded. The only difference was the timing. Though, the concept shared by Team B was finally approved by the client and they were rewarded by the Creative Director, they didn’t really like two things about him – he rewarded them only after the client approved their concept and the fact that he rewarded Team A way before he heard from the client. There was clear discrimination and he came across as biased. However, what didn’t really work for him was the timing. Not something that should have happened  at the Best Advertising Agency in Hyderabad.

The idea of placing milestones differently is more about understanding the fact that a milestone is not a destination, it’s not even a journey; it’s in between! Well, in business terms, the journey in this case was the process that involved the teams working on ideas. And the destination was the client approving these ideas. But only if we choose to place our milestone, when we are closer to the destination and when we have put in all our efforts, it would work wonders for an organization and it’s people. We can choose to, without discrimination, reward our people and celebrate the mere fact that the best efforts were put in. This should be unbiased and irrespective of the final outcome (client’s approval in this case). This might not necessarily guarantee the project to you. But this will certainly let your people know that you value their efforts purely as they are; without being biased or influenced by any external factors.

The milestone should be placed where you end up putting all your efforts – just before the destination is reached. That’s the hallmark of the Best Advertising Agency in Hyderabad.

History defines a client and an advertising agency’s relationship nothing short of a marriage. An arranged one at that. So, there’s absolutely no question of courtship. Then how do some of the top advertising agencies Hyderabad wed clients?

How do some of the Top Advertising Agencies Hyderabad wed clients?

Well, a couple of elders in the family (read senior managers of a brand) assume that they know what’s best for the bride & groom. And decide for them. Like every other marriage, this one’s also about love-hate and some debate. It’s a marriage where the client doesn’t want to compromise; all he wants to do is increase the logo size. A marriage where the agency doesn’t want to compromise either, all it wants is a small little breather.

Well, all this is pre-marriage drama. But there’s a lot that happens post marriage too. In fact, that’s where the meat is. It’s where you’ll come across some unusually usual phases:

Honey (See the) moon:

This is the most cherished phase of a marriage. The idea here is to spend some quality time with each other. It’s for the first time when a couple looks forward to exploring a romantic locale. True to the saying, “If you really want to know a person, travel with them”. And these first few days do what they’re supposed to – rip both parties off their veils. Then it all boils down to vests and a couple of briefs; one that the agency wears, and the other that the client shares. The good thing is that at least the brief stays till the end. Though it’s never close to what the client desires. The reason? Simple. You need to know where you’re heading before you expect someone else to reach there. And most of the times these top advertising agencies Hyderabad are left in the dark.

In the court of (in)-law:

A marriage gives immense happiness to many. But it leaves the sisters-in-law (read mid-level management) jealous. These are those typical soap opera characters that are always occupied doing nothing. All they do is pit the elders (senior management) against the bride. Perhaps, they are jealous because they don’t find the right match for themselves. But how would they? A right match cannot be made with leftover like them. Isn’t it?

Sweet in-DIE-gestion:

It’s no different from a situation when a wife asks her husband, if she’s gone fat. Now, imagine this question teamed with a warning to give an honest answer. This is where some of the top advertising agencies Hyderabad land up. Clients are no different from a fat wife. Just that they have way more fancies about themselves. Well, both these scenarios are pretty similar. And the poor husband knows that he has two options – lie or die! Now you know what keeps most marriages intact?

Love triangle or mad angle:

The most unique angle a marriage can have is a triangle. And this is something that seeps into an agency and a client’s marriage too. It’s when another agency pitches to the client, offering some special benefits. Or when a client decides to look outside the marriage (read extramarital affair). But the reason for this infidelity is not dissatisfaction; it’s more to do with greed! It’s a phase when both parties play the blame game, and look for thorns even in a bouquet. This is, undoubtedly, the phase with a lot of drama.

Subject to market risks / kids:

What happens when you hear that your wife is pregnant, and you guys were not even planning for a kid? That kind of a shock is the state of normal affairs in an advertising agency. To save some bucks, clients do not use protection while making love to their bank balance. Leaving some of the top advertising agencies Hyderabad uninformed, they have unplanned babies (read advertising space). Then, they don’t just expect the agency to handle the mother (their brand), from pregnancy to delivery; they expect it to handle these babies too.

Well, when top advertising agencies Hyderabad wed clients, it’s beyond a power-packed reality show. It’s got all the ingredients of a game plan filled with arguments, gossips, backbiting, tears, aggression and more. In fact, if a show is ever created on this subject, every episode will be a big hit. But despite all these dimensions to this marriage, there are some couples that manage to live together forever – happily or not? Let’s keep that for another day.