Keep it R.E.A.L

Marketing is not my cup of tea, but still I always get excited when I come across marketing topics. I came across a new way marketing strategy that can be used for multicultural community. Well it not a child’s play to market to such communities. Imagine how u react to a well dressed, ever smiling , soft spoken ,always flattering sales guy who rings your door bell. Bang! Shut the door on his face and you are not guilty for your doings too! Now imagine you in his shoes. Well you do not want the same reaction, isn’t it?

Multicultural marketing has always kept marketers on their toes. It is still an unconquered territory. Of course, they are stories of successful companies that could reach the global audience but they are handful. No one knows the rules still! I was reading an article from 4Ps Business & Marketing by Siu Tam supervisor at DE Advertising. She says about a new Marketing Strategy used for multicultural community. She calls it R.E.A.L. R= Relevance E= Experts A= Ambassadors L= Link Well she talks this process citing examples in USA. But it can be very much be applied in India too. India is a big world in this small world, having different religion, castes, race, languages, and cultures. The Indian market can be segmented in 100 different ways. Well I have tried to give examples in Indian context.

RELEVANCE: The most important thing for marketers must ask whether the product or service is truly RELEVANT to the customers. HOW relevant it is? You cannot take customers for granted. I can give a classic case of failure of iPhone. Inspite of having such huge brand name, Apple's iPhone couldn’t even make a dent. It had only managed to sell around 11,000 units. Why? i Phone was not relevant to 1.12 billion minus 11,000 Indian customers. The company failed to strike a connect with Indian consumers. Why will Indian customer pay Rs.31, 000 for iPhone when it can better facilities at lower cost from Nokia, Samsung or Motorola? Many features which are a given in a phone that costs you Rs4, 000 are missing in iPhone. 1. iPhone did not have Texting or SMS which is the lifeline for Indians to be in touch. 2. No Video Recording – iPhone sure comes with a camera but not sophisticated enough for video recording which is so much fun for all. 3. Indian customers are not so comfortable with the touch screen keypad in the iPhones. 4. Mobile Web is not big in India but its growing – mobile internet usage is still small compared to PC internet usage, which requires 3G and 3G is still not introduced in India. Why will any pay for something which cannot be used? Simple things but where ignored by giants like Apple .Reason- not done the market research hence met their doom.

EXPERT Good marketers recognize that assembling a team of experts leads to success. Marketer must launch a multicultural effort by consulting appropriate experts to ensure that the campaign accounts for the appropriate context. Ms. Siu rightly says that it takes an expert to give you the ability to “transcreate” the message into something compelling. You have hit the customers on the right spot. A good instance was given by my Marketing Professor was about PARAS Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The way they launch their each product in the market makes everyone else green eye. Whichever product they have launched be it-LIVON, BOROSOFT, DERMICOOL, RECOVA, MOOV, KRACK, ITCHGAURD, D’COLD…have become a success story. Why? They show the audience the true problem, the reality of the problem and for which we have the solution. The message doesn’t change the product but envelopes it with a layer of filial piety. How they do this? Answer they do their homework. They got market research team to understand the need, want, desire of the target audience as well as competitors around. They test their product in a small group of customers or small regions for 6 months prior to launching the product. You have to be open to the feedbacks from experts. Reality can bite, but it helps to take preventive as well as corrective steps to face your face later in the market.

AMBASSADORS .Ok. So you have a fantastic automobile like Xylo. The message is clear “end of era of sedans”. You have identified your audience –the upper rich class who like to party and who like live king-size. The advertisements hit the target. It’s a success. The phones buzz. Websites crashes. A Marathi Manoos enters the showroom. He wants to buy the car. Has money too! But communicates in Marathi. The non Marathi sales guy-the ambassador of your company cannot serve him. No matter how hard you try, you cannot you cannot make the customer comfortable. Frustration level grows. The customers is unsatisfied by the response he receives .You lose the battle. He walks out of the door. It is because while dealing with multicultural community you have to entertain them. Make them feel special. One best way is to employ multilingual employees to establish a rapport with the customer of any community. This helps to serve the customers. If you want to appeal to a new audience, prudence dictates that you should be able to service them when they walk in.

LINK Sometimes we do great job on focusing the marketing message out to the target segment that we forget to communicate the new effort to the existing frontline staff. The rest of the team must be linked too. You have some bilingual employees and phone operators to handle non English speaking customers. But do the rest of the team know about it? This is also an area of extreme importance to look at when going for multi cultural marketing. You have clear communicate the message to team .keep them in the loop.

Ms.Siu ends with saying (which I do not want to modify) “the R.E.A.L. process demystifies the steps in multicultural marketing and shows that any successful multicultural campaign in a team effort and not the sole burden or undertaking of one lone wolf marketer.” It also shows that how much homework one has to be done before going for multicultural marketing. It is a process and going by the systematic way we can make new rules for others to follow.

Cheers!!! -Remin Saldanha