Brands that have become Verbs

- Pratiti Nath

“Let's google it”, a  phrase frequently used by all of us. Can’t find a location? Google it, comes the answer. Want to know about something – Google it. Indeed “Google” has become synonymous to the verb “search”, so much so that we use in our daily conversations. In reality, we all know what actually it is. A search engine created by Bill Gates company Microsoft. We rely on Google so much that it has become our daily activity. Googling has become one of our natural activities like walking, running, sleeping etc.

Quite similar to GOOGLE, there are certain commodities which have become a part of our daily life. As a result the brand names of these products play a dominant role in our vocabulary. Such brands have become generic names representing those products. Here is list showcasing such brands names.

1.      Band –aid : A slight cut or a big tear, band-aid comes to rescue. The sticky adhesive band used to seal a cut wound was created by Johson&Johson in June 1920[1]. An employee of the company Earle Dickson hit upon this idea while thinking a way out for the frequent wounds encountered by his wife. Thus, started the idea which empowered self-treatment techniques. First released products are handmade. Then in 1951, they introduced commercially made band-aids which instantly gained popularity.

2       Cellophane : Guess what?The thin transparent sheet we used to cover things is actually a brand name. It is an abbreviation of two materials from which they are made. “Cello” from the plant cell wall material  “cellulose” and “phane” from “diaphane”. Swiss chemist Jacques E. Brandenberger  created this in 1912 when he was looking to make a cloth which could repel spilled liquids like wine. For this purpose he used viscose for water –proof coating clothes but the fabric became very stiff. Instead the coating material came out as a thin film. This gave him the idea of making a new material  - a water-proof coating film.[2] It was first used as a candy wrapper by Whitman’s company.

3.    Escalator : The electronically enabled moving staircase has become a part of our life. Everywhere we go there is an escalator to ease the inconvenience of climbing up staircase. In reality,Escalator is a brand name. It is derived from the word “scala” meaning steps. The prefix “E” and suffix “tor” was added to it giving it the meaning traversing from.Charles Seeberger of Otis Elevator Company created this product in 1900. The first commercially available one was manufactured on 1900 and won the prestigious 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. However, Otis lost his trademark and the term was declared a generic name by US Patent Office.

4.       Kerosene : The liquefied combustible substance used in household activities like cooking and other lightning purpose is actually a trademark brand. It is derived from the Greek word of wax, that is, “kerx”. In 1854, Abraham Gesner trademarked it. At first manufacturing rights were only given to two companies - The North American Gas Light Company and the Downer Company. Later it became a generic name and was allowed to be manufactured by other companies.

 5.       Ping-Pong : Ping-Pong or table tennis – what is the actual term? There are some who think that the chinese call table tennis by this name. Well Ping-pong indeed is a trademark brand! The actual sport is Table Tennis…Phew! Ping pong is a trademark brand dealing with all products related to table tennis. It was registered by the Parker Brothers Inc. However, later it went to Escalade Sports Company. 

    

     6.       Xerox :  “The word is photocopy”, scolded our high school teacher every time we said XEROX. If you belong to this category and still refer photocopy as Xerox out of habit, you need to know this. XEROX is the trademark brand manufacturing photocopying machines. Like all other brand names it is written on the product that is the machine. Hence, shopkeepers and ordinary people know it by this name. In 1947 Haloid Corporation, a New York based photographic paper manufacturer used Chester Carlton’s kitchen electrophotography technique to manufacture a photographier, that is a XEROX machine.Later they named the technique Xerography and the company XEROX.

7.       Popsicle: Orange, red , yellow, multi-coloured delicious popsicles sticks – really heaven for children. Alas! They are not called POPSICLES!!!. Yes, you heard it right. Those colourful ice-cream sticks are indeed a trademark brand of the Unilever Company. On a chilly winter night of 1905, a forgetful11-year-old Frank Epperson left some soda water mixture on a stick. In the morning he found the frozen stick. 20years down the line, he banked on his childhood experience to create ice-pops in his lemonade stand. Later Unilever used it to make POPSICLES.

An old man once asked a shopkeeper for a Colgate. "It's out of stock", replied the shopkeeper. The oldman said "O.K give me some other type of Colgate in that case".Product innovation, marketing and positioning has helped these companies in making the generic name of the product a brand itself.
So there you go! Bursting your bubble here!  Hurry up and flaunt your new found knowledge. Thank us later..

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-Aid

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane

[3] http://www.pingpong.com/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocopier

Social Media Marketing for Franchisees

- Pratiti Nath

Earlier this month the internet went crazy over a handsome looking roadside tea vendor.  Now, the buzz is that he has become a model. Well, it all started when a few people started raving about his good looks and sharing his pictures on Facebook.  Gradually it spread like a wild fire with major newspapers reporting it and soon he became a face to reckon with it. Here, Social Media acted like a catalyst speeding up the process in a jiffy! 

Now think of it this way. There are billions of people all over the globe. Of these billions, a moderate percentage has access to the internet. So it comes down to some millions people using the social media. Hence, it is an ideal platform for marketing your franchise. In fact a more viable form of marketing because of its greater outcome and outreach with very limited expenditure in a short span of time.  lt’s like the saying by AnushkaSharma in “Band, Baja and Baraat” – similar to weddings as cited in the film social media too is a never ending sphere. Irrespective of the economy or climate or social trends it continues to click.

What exactly is social media marketing?

From the name itself , it is clearly understood that it deals with marketing done via various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. This type of marketing strategy emphasizes on gaining more viewership for your website by promoting your franchise – gradually engaging people and drawing investors.  

Of all the social media platforms Facebook and twitter are more widely used. The reason being their relative predominance on the global sphere. While Facebook is used for global as well as local exposure , twitter is mainly used for global outreach.

India is  the 3^rd highest populated nation and much of its population is on Facebook. Hence, it is the ideal place for social media marketing.

Now the question is - what is franchise business model? How can social media marketing help?

Franchise business model is the legitimate use of a company’s business model - their ideas , vision and brand . A particular company has a given set of business model applicable to all of their brand outlets present all of the globe. This builds up a franchise business model for the company. All local and regional centers follow this franchise model. 

Social media with its crisp and highly engaging content can easily promote and strengthen your franchise. It comes with minimal cost and a greater target audience. It can be simply achieved by opening a Facebook page or a twitter handle for your franchise. Start promoting your website by presenting your ideas- the unique way you are solving the problem.  One benefit of using social media is its personalized and creative connect.  Like you can share videos, short messages, photos, giphs to attract people. On Facebook, you can go live and directly interact or create events related to your business.  You can host special contests and give away a gift from your franchise to the winter. The most important aspect of social media marketing is constant engagement with your audience. It is essential to be quick and responsive. Twitter is the most responsive in this regard. It is  usually used by people to gauge different trends and directly contact with people. So make sure you reply to tweets, re-tweet people who give you feedback, use hashtag to promote your products or use trending hashtags for your purpose. 

This is essentially how social media marketing works.

However, there is an exact model of how to set up things for social media marketing.  There are 4 structures of social media marketing that franchises can opt for.

 

Centralized structure

Here the brand  has single centralized presence in social media, like a same page for all activities relating to the franchise. Thus  content will flow in-out of the same outlet.  This ensures your global outreach and all contents being restricted to your brand without diluting. However, there is one drawback losing out local customers and failing to meet cross-cultural differences.

Centralized Blend Structure

In this model, the same corporate house maintains different social media profiles relating to its franchise. Here different content is generated across various profiles according to various locations/divisions but related to the same franchise. Hence all contents are driven to the same brand and local customers are kept engaged.  It requires a robust social media team to pull this up

Controlled Structure

This structure is quite similar to centralized blend. The only difference is their management.  Here the different franchise profiles are managed by their respective team s but the content is provided by the parent franchise brand.  This involves greater involvement of the franchises with their respective audience. However, conflict of interest may arise due to discrepancy in content approval. Also outcome may vary across different franchises.

Monitored Structure

Different franchises manage their own social media presence without any involvement from the parent franchise. They only follow a set of guidelines from the parent company. By using this model local area content is well established forming a niche in the local market.  This kind of model requires a big and strong social media team to maintain all franchises. 

These are the ways to generate a social media marketing campaign for your franchise.

Despite all these, there are certain problems that franchises face while embarking on a social media marketing campaign.

 What are these potential problems?

The problems are quite genuine and have a potential to derail your social media marketing strategy.

Setting the correct target audience

It is important that you target the correct audience. Any miscalculations in this regard can greatly affect you and you can lose potential customers.

Creating different page for different locations
In order to cover different regional bases over a wide geographical area , it is preferable to opt for different pages for different location. Your brand may be a global one but you need local presence to monopolize the local market. Hence your local business outlet should have a social media presence.

Opt for a fan page or create a group to boost audience interaction
Interacting with your audience is essential for social media marketing campaign. Sometimes it becomes difficult to handle all feedback coming from different franchise sources. The best way to deal with this is to create a separate fan page or a group for your franchise. Add your regular customers and people who are active on your profiles. This way it is easier to get customer feedback and give them personalized response.

Like all marketing campaign, social media campaign also comes with certain checks and balances.

So, what are these checks and balances?

Maintain visibility
Keep updating contents on a regular basis. Come up with refreshing and engaging contents. Make sure your franchise remain visible in their newsfeed.

Always maintain contact with the audience
Keep in touch with your customers. Engage them, interact with them.  Make sure you are responsive to their comments and queries.

 Be Creative
Look out for new ways of engaging people – like creating contests on special occasions, urging your customers to share some unique/memorable experiences related to your brand.  Use different tools like pictures, giphs, videos, and blogs to share contents.

 Make call for action proposals
Post contents that urge people to act and make them curious to look for more. Ask them to subscribe more to avail greater discount or share it with friends to earn reward points. Urge them to download your franchise app and win 1 year free subscription. Attract customers with these kinds of deals.

Circulate content to and from your parent franchise
Remind the audience that you are part of a franchise. Share contents to your parent franchise and post contents from their page as well. Make people aware of your brand credibility.

Thus by formulating a proper social media marketing campaign one can easily boost his franchise business model.  Social media is not just a trend.  In fact it sets up new trends. Who knows with a dynamic strategy YOU MIGHT BE THE NEXT BIG THING!!

Reasons How Email Marketing Can Help Your Business

- Pratiti Nath

Thousands of companies spanning different genres are plaguing the market. Every minute a hundred more are trying to break into the market. By the time you are gearing up to make a mark another dozen are waiting to snatch your place. It’s a never ending vicious circle. Numerous new ones arrive each day. Some survive the test of time while others fade into oblivion.  You must be wondering, “How to stand the test of time and make a mark?” Well the answer is Email marketing. Over the years it has garnered the most revenue- approximately 38$ for each 1$ spent. It is  like the saying by Julius Caesar “Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw. I conquered”

E-mail marketing is a phenomenon of marketing your business venture by means of authorized e-mails. It involves sharing monthly newsletters offering new discounts, products, soliciting sales, sending business requests and advertisements. All directly to your prospective clients in their personal electronic letter box!

So what are we waiting for?  Let’s explore the email marketing avenue keeping in mind these insightful points! Here are some reasons to opt for email marketing:

            Direct involvement with customers

Through e-mail you are getting into a person’s heart. It is the most direct form of communication. It’s like a letter from a friend who knows you. Your company will be that friend to the customers.  This is easily achieved by sending e-mail layouts of handpicked products, special offers and discounts, questionnaires for surveys.

Boosts your sales

E-mail marketing draws more people towards your business and retains your loyal customers. Special offers and discounts for new sign-ups, creating more follow-up mails over the time – all these makes you click. It spreads like a word of mouth by means of referral programs.

 Keeps you connected and in top of business

It helps you keep connected with your clients which make sure you are on their mind in times of need. A regular weekly or monthly follow- up email helps you stay connected and also provides great opportunities to draw attention to new schemes/products.

Increases your  brand credibility

Email has the ability to make a personal imprint in the customer’s heart. Almost all of us receive a flood of emails from our subscribed companies. Majority of us delete them as spam mail. However, unique layouts, catchy headlines, action-prompting opening lines makes an impact which prevents us from deleting them. Hence we try to stick to the interesting and credible ones. Credibility comes from consistent efforts of including special features, personalized tips and blogs about your business.

 Cuts down on the expenditure

E-mail is just like a business letter only with less expenditure. One can target a wider audience  within minimal time with the least expenditure. Most email marketing strategies comes with various templates. You just need to improvise, customize and add some creativity. Voila! You are done.

Creates brand awareness and recognition

While using email marketing one uses crisp catchy sentences and words, along with  brand names, logo, tagline, company motto and business vision. Thus the email layout helps to build up your brand recognition and also draws potential investors.

Increases your business knowledge

Emails help in gauging the market mood and customer satisfaction. This is easily done by quick surveys and questionnaires which make you aware what’s clicking and what’s not. You get a firsthand account on how you are faring and where you need to improve.

Email marketing - is it a boon or a bane?

Despite the many benefits of e-mail marketing there is a controversy surrounding its utility. Due to its passive conversational nature many of us doesn’t regard it as a viable option.  There is always a fear of going unheard /unseen. People may delete your newsletters without even taking a glancing or it can end up in their spam folder. Even worse if they get annoyed and unsubscribe.
In spite of these apprehensions it is still very much the in-thing as it involves absolutely zero cost and yields great results within a short span of time. One way of tackling invisibility in email marketing is making sure you follow up with a call and by adding a spam filter. If used properly it can be a good medium for conversing with the customer.

Now, the question arises how do you measure its success rate?

One of the major advantages of E-mail marketing is the relative ease of measuring its success. One can easily analyze this by incorporating certain metric analytics in your email campaign system. These includes measures like bounce rate (% of emails undelivered), delivery rate (% of emails delivered to inbox), e-mail list growth rate, % of people clicking your mail, % sharing your mail, conversion rate (% clicking the links on email). An absolute measurement is Revenue per email sent that is , the total revenue collected from a particular email campaign.

From all this we can gather that E-mail marketing is here to stay. It can never become obsolete. It is a potential tool to build up your business content. As the American actor and playwright Jason Miller said, “The key ingredient to a better content experience is relevance.”