Google SEO report:

When 80% of the internet users are using Search engines, it became important for even small business to use search engines effectively. Google has released a report card analyzing how it optimizes its product pages for search engines, including its own.
The report prepared by three Google employees help web masters to know better how to optimize and use similarly. In the report it has mentioned 'improvement needed in 66%' of its own criteria mentioned. with many things to improve itself, Is Google giving way for others to occupy its position?

Virtual Life (Or) Real Life?

'Second life', a 3D virtual website, is deepening its footage in social media. First of its kind in creating virtual humans and communities to interact online. This has given a platform for many marketers to interact with their target groups virtually, which is not possible normally.
Now, A Korean couple allowed their child to starve to death because of their addiction to raising a 'virtual' child in a Second-Life-style game online. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/couple-let-baby-starve-to_n_487287.html)
so people are giving as much, even more, importance than their real life. is this anything to do with the technology?
people are spending almost 6 hrs on social networking sites, giving less time for their personal life and family life. with our daily busy life schedules, humans are missing much of its real life experiences.
Marketers are concentrating in utilizing the low cost social media marketing effectively, giving an additional time for public to hang on to social media marketing. if this virtual life domination happens now, time comes in future when 'machines rule humans'.

WHOSE THE WINNER (RIN Vs TIDE AD)?

In advertisement the winner is one who gains more visibility in the media. Its clear from the ad that Rin is paying for P&G's advertisement also, for its presence in the media. The more you are 'on air' the more you are in the market.

Is tide going to take it like what Pepsi did to coco-cola (Pepsi said "Nothing Official About It!!!' when coco-cola is the official broadcaster for world cup in 2003 and Pepsi won).
we have to wait and see the Tides reaction apart from going to court!!

IPL: Who are the Gainers?

Is IPL a successful business plan made by Modi, the Chairman& Commissioner of IPL? Who are the gainers? Is it that BCCI alone? For this answer I have to say “yes”.
The World Sports Group (WSG) bought the IPL rights for 10 years for a sum of $1 billion and in turn gave to Sony for a three year period. Sony now owes IPL $30mn and looking for an exit route from the contract. Sony is unable to make its money through the advertisement sponsors. In the first season of IPL, Sony has 2000 seconds of TV ad time priced at 2lakhs per 10second ad slot, A sharp 75k increase from 20-20 world cup rate of 1.25lakh per 10second ad slot. Now it has to increase its prices to pay to IPL. But with the economic situation, will the companies are ready to pay huge amounts for advertisements.
The sponsorships for the franchises are still to be finalized. Few days back, Coco-Cola has taken the sponsorship of Kolkata Knight Raiders, after as Pepsi dropped Sharukh khan as their Brand Ambassador. The franchises are fighting hard to get sponsorships’. With this, can the franchises make profits in the second season, with only Kolkata Knight Raiders and Rajasthan Royals making profits in the first season? Who are profited, isn’t it only the players & IPL alone.

RECESSION: IT’S STEP INTO PRINT MEDIA

India’s print media industry has joined the growing list of businesses seeking a bailout from the government to combat a sudden downturn in the economy after three years of rapid growth. Government has called up on to guide Print Media in recession period. Government has a direct impact on the Industry.
DAVP refers to the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity, a unit of the I&B ministry that manages the government’s advertising and buys media space or air-time on its behalf, and commercial rates are the rates at which regular private advertisers buy space in newspapers and magazines.
DAVP is the largest advertiser in terms of volumes, or the advertising space bought, for most national publishers. The fee paid by the agency for the space bought, however, is only 8-10% of the rates paid by commercial advertisers. Commercial advertising rates for the Delhi edition of top-selling English dailies, for instance, range from Rs2, 500 per sq. cm to Rs3, 500 per sq. cm, while the corresponding DAVP rates are Rs250-283 per sq. cm.
Real estate, automobiles, financial services and all other such large print advertisers have cut their ad spends massively in the past few months. With all these effects, publishers have asked the government, the single largest advertiser in newspapers, to revise its advertising rates, abolish custom duty on newsprint and withdraw fringe benefit tax levied on the non-core salary components of their employees.
Print Media apart from asking government to increase the advertising rates, it can decrease the costs per sq. cm. for other costumers to increase their spending. With lower offerings it can attract the market from TV ads, which are a high spending for companies.

CADBURY-MARKETING RESEARCH BENEFITS:

We (not to forget I am a student from Alliance, Bangalore) had a class on marketing research taken by Mr. Narasimha, former GM of Cadbury marketing team. He spoke about the various facets of Marketing research and its implications on companies.
He said Market research is the gathering, recording and analyzing of information about markets and their probable reaction to product, price, distribution and promotion decisions. He gave us a plethora of examples from his professional life in the field of marketing.
Cadbury had exceeded its target expectations in 1997 (target-380cr, achieved-427cr with marketing expense of 62cr). With these positive results, management increased its target to achieve 540cr in 1998 by increasing its marketing expenses. The brand manager was provided 90cr as the marketing budget to achieve the target. But the Brand manager asked for a month's time to make a decision regarding the budget plan. He approached a Marketing research team to find how much budget he needs to spend to achieve the target.
The Marketing research team had come up with some interesting points. The correlation between the Advertisement and brand recognition was 0.9, between Advertisement and visibility was 0.95 but between Advertisement and purchase intention it was 0.3. From this data, it was clear that advertisements do not have a major influence on purchase. Again he asked the research team to find out what influenced people in buying the product. From the research they found out that the visibility of product has a positive effect on purchasing decision. In India most of the shopping is done by Women and interestingly the most exciting moments of their life do involve shopping for something. When they are accompanied by their children for shopping, there is always pressure to purchase chocolates. In order to avoid getting disturbed in their shopping experience, first thing they do is buy chocolates that are visible to them. So the visibility has an effect on the sale of the product.
Considering the data, Cadbury's brand manager had spent less on the advertisements and spent nearly 12cr on increasing the visibility of the product in retail shops. By following this Cadbury had made Rs.700cr in sales, which had surpassed their target sales of 540cr. The marketing expenditure spend was 50cr compared to 62cr compared to last year’s expenditure. From this any management student can learn that the decision we take as managers should have data to support.

Amid Recession-Coco-Cola & Pepsi plans to Increase Prices:

Coca-Cola has emerged as the Market Leader in India with its Thumps Up brand and Sprite has surpassed Pepsi to take over 2nd place with 16.16% market share, with PepsiCo lagging behind with market share at 13%. Coco-Cola plans to increase its 600ml variant price from rs.20 to rs.22 and 2lt bottle by rs.5, to rs.55. Isn’t this a brave step taken by Coco-Cola? The reasons could be, increase in Demand for its products now that the festive season is approaching, or to increase the margin due to an increase in the Input costs. PepsiCo is following in the footsteps of Coco-Cola to increase its price by 10%.
Coco-Cola, with an increase in its sales by upto 18% in India is looking good and has a positive chance of sustaining its position in the market even with the inrease in prices. With the decrease in its sales as well as the market share, PepsiCo’s needs to take a strategic decision whether to follow Coco-Cola by increasing its prices or to remain with the existing pricing policy so as to provide an opportunity for growth. Well if PepsiCo has decided to increase its prices, it would expect to remain with same market share along with increase in margin. If PepsiCo doesn’t change any prices, it can capture the market with its low comparative price.
Well in America, pepsi's profits reduced by 43% where as coke's profits reduced by 7%, because of strong dollar.