Defying Conventional Logic : Media before Distribution

I have always believed that among the four Ps of marketing "Placement" is a unique challenge in India, and companies which have been able to crack it are the ones which have managed to succeed......

And the emphasis is also on how well one is able to align distribution with overall marketing strategy. Though seems very logical I will give an interesting question which confronts many marketing managers, Should media come before distribution, which means that should the Ads hit the TV first and then you go ahead and distribute your products. The conventional logic says that the distribution or placement has to happen before the media hits the TV, as you would not want consumers to go to the shop and ask for the product and the retailer says it is not available.

But there are a few companies which defy this logic like Darshan Patel,  of Vini Cosmetics, who made Fogg deodorant available after almost a month of Advertising on the TV. The retailers kept on asking for the product as people were coming and asking from them. The unfulfilled demand meant Fogg could afford to reduce the trade margins.

But can all companies do that , I think for most companies the conventional route is safer, and one should also have the confidence in your product adopt this strategy....

Ecommerce Revolution 3.0

There have been two phases of ecom revolution in India,

The first phase was ecom 1.0 the first time internet and ecommerce was started in the late 90's and early 2000 (at least in India), and they also very exciting days, lots of hype and recruitment happening. I also bought stuff online and experienced the revolution first hand as a consumer. As with many other new industries there was a bust (Dotcom Bust) and very few survived. The focus in those days was to get maximum eye balls, but how would one monetise them was never answered or rather questioned ………

We are in the second phase now, and as with the last time this phase is also very heady, deals and match-making happing between companies and consumers having a ball with deals and free deliveries and it seems that the party would never end. And guess what is the focus now, it is on transactions, al a the "Billion Day Sale” of flipkart or the snapdeals. There is a mad rush to get to the maximum transactions, again as earlier no one seems to be looking at anything beyond transactions. The snapdeal losses should help open our eyes....

I guess there would be ecom 3.0 which would happen where people would focus on profitable transactions, and that is when the industry would stabilise. I hope this would happen without a bust and companies like the Flipkart’s and the snapdeal’s would be the ones who would capitalise on the market which they have built, but then you never know if revolutions can happen without bloodshed.....