‘NGC
INSIGHT:
Great Experiment in Knowledge Branding!
Reflections from MLS
session at MICA lead by Ms.
Debarpita Banerjee, VP - Marketing & Communication, Nat Geo and Fox
International Channels.
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What is marketing? It is all
about closing gaps! Gaps in—insights,
perceptions and awareness. How the traditional branding and marketing is
changing its strategy from purely rational and emotional point of view to a
hybrid approach of using mix of head and heart. Especially it is truer when
looked at how FMCGs are changing their role in our lives ---from being merely a
product to act like as a value adding entity shaping dreams and inspirations. Moreover
these strategies are using awareness, consideration, loyalty aspects to boost
image and enhance the visibility, accessibility and utility of the
products/services being marketed.
Today`s marketing is based on
decoding the challenges inherent in question ‘how to attract consumers/receivers’
to grasp the messages being circulated in media. This process is mediated
through art of selection of target audience and corresponding right persons,
right time, right place. (ex. Bacardi NH7 Weekender) Though aggressive
strategy, media plan and touch points matter, most important criteria for marketing/branding
to be successful is the relevance and utility for consumers. While many of the
brands are traversing or oscillating between head to heart continuum, some brands have positioned themselves as
purely rational reflector of their image while some have consistent in
reflecting the emotional/inspirational aspect in their image.
After all, what really matters
in this competitive world is how relevant, how real (authentic and tangible
returns), resonated the brands are with the lives of people around. These three
values relevance, reality and resonance are cornerstone of the dynamic
marketing/branding scenario in these times of social networks, customized production
development and demanding assurances regarding quality/satisfaction about
products/services being offered.
In all these, the media
products—which are beyond the categories of FMCGs/services, offer exciting
opportunities to experiment in creative domain. Here media content is both vehicle
and product itself, simultaneously entangled in each other. Especially this rewards
tremendous opportunities when content is about knowledge—history, science,
technology, environment, wildlife, entrepreneurship, curiosity for kids etc. National
Geographic Channel in recent times carrying out many experiments to attract
people to watch their broadcasting and get hooked to it.
Its interesting because, NGC is
doing many experiments in recent times regarding its national/international
content and ways to promote them. One of the programs of NGC is about sociocultural taboos existing in Indian subcontinent. It is a beautiful
example of how image of traditional wildlife/environment broadcaster can be
changed to a platform dedicated/committed to lives of people, even though
driven/inspired out of branding/marketing strategy. Also, many programs like Science of Stupid and also campaign
series where characters ridicule the people who bunk science classes and convey
indirect message indicating losses in life due to past ignorance towards
science. Well, I will not call them conscious campaigns to raise public
awareness towards concentrating more on merely studying science but actually it
is much more crucial campaign than that.
Even though borne out of
competitiveness of business of eyeballs and ROI, branding of knowledge content
actually empowers viewers through serials and also through promotion of the
same. Because kind of tactics and promotional wooing and persuasive communication
deployed certainly adds to the social discourse of building rational, arresting
cynicism towards exploratory life and reward exhibition, documentation and
dissemination of deconstruction of larger life around—through documentaries,
through travelogues and through interviews.
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