Mozartisssssssmmmmmmmmmmmm

Writng this one after a long time.Drew inspiration after my visit to Salsburg(Austria).Apart from its picturesque beauty,the city is also famous for two other reasons.....

(i) The famous movie 'Sound of Music' was shot here .

(ii) and one of the famous Music composers of all times Wolfgang Mozart belongs to Salsburg.

Its simply amazing how the town is completely obsessed with Mozart,every direction you turn your head to you cant help noticing how Mozart over the ages has transformed into a cult Brand ambassador.

Salzburg stores are stuffed with Mozart souvenirs — from musical boxes and T shirts to the famous Mozart Kugel chocolates. Everyone wants to take a little bit of Mozart home with them.I couldn't help myself and bought a box of Mozart Kugel chocolates for folks back home.

RETAILING entails not just selling, but rather the art of selling with the right ingredients that include merchandise, store design, sales people, product line and display. Yes! All these elements together complete the look of a store and grant a customer the end satisfaction.

When you are into the business of selling brands like Reebok,Nike,Adidas and the likes, emphasis is laid on the display of the products. Every market you go to there are similar brands in a department store, similar merchandise, but what really differentiates one store from the other is the visual display.

Earlier, it was a big contrast to shop abroad and shop in India, but over the last five years or so the country has seen a remarkable change in retail, not just the sales, but in the entire visual display of stores. During a recent visit to the CP market one could notice a significant change in the visual display of the stores, be it specialty or department. The first sensory perception gets into action when the eyes catch and convey the message to the brain – that this is the store that needs to be dropped into. Here most of the stores have display windows, some have it openback, where one can sneak a peek into much of the store, while some have a closed back, in which the store is not visible from outside except from the main door area, and some stores have a windowless window whereby the entire merchandise is on the shelves and can be seen from outside, having no display in the window area.

Most Reebok stores have an LED illuminated sportsbar (illuminated table) and the plasma screen lure one into the tech savvy world of Reebok. The concept of this sportsbar is absolutely practical, and does justice to the product line, displaying the sole of the shoe along with the head view . The feet of the table have small balls in them illuminated in white colour, and around the table the LEDs run in blue colour shouting the currently running campaigns of Reebok all over the world. Being an electronics engineer by training I realized that these LEDs are economical too.The LEDs, low in consumption do not need more than 0.1 watt to operate, enjoy a long life of up to 100,000 hours, and are of high luminous efficiency. They are also low heat emitting, environment protecting, unlike fluorescents with mercury, and are great for decorative yet functional displays. The concept of the sportsbar is the signature focal point at the entrance façade for most Reebok stores. The open back-windows on either side of the clean front form the primary display and the secondary display window. The primary window carries the Paris Trainer campaign. This window has the graphic as the backdrop and Reebok Pump Paris trainer line of shoes for display. The secondary window has the latest collection of shoes along with apparel on the nesting tables .

The windows are tastefully done, serving as a teaser to the wider display area. The windows, which were being changed once a month, will now undergo the exercise every fortnight, keeping in mind the new product line and campaigns.

Once inside, the rubber wood shade wooden flooring and the interiors of the store clearly convey the concept of the universal appeal. It's a truly international shopping experience.

The product display is on the lines of a contemporary art gallery with a high tech sporty feel to it. Multipurpose fixtures with slatwalls in pine complement the gray which is the logo colour and steel edging in the fixtures.

The wall spaces have been optimally used with multiple options of front facing, side hanging and for stackables. The fixtures accommodate 80 per cent of hanging and 20 per cent of stackables. These fixtures are made of board in pine, acrylic with steel edging.

The nesting tables and the T-rectangular fixtures are placed at least 5-6 feet away from the wall cases giving enough space to the consumer to walk around the table. An interesting semicircular table going into a curve is placed at the centre of the store as the focal point that has merchandise related to golfwear and fitness accessories.

The menswear display on the left and the womenswear on the right have a colour story of only 2-3 colours which help the consumer make an easy choice with the coordinates, making the display look absolutely clean.

Both the womenswear and menswear have a headless mannequin displaying the merchandise next to these shelves, showing the related merchandise and the wearability, giving a complete look to the consumers.

In most stores the cash counters are located at the centre line near to the wall case fixture, having all impulse items next to it which includes socks and caps. The cash counter is illuminated with a translucent acrylic case.

Walking towards the rear of the store are the fitness accessories like yoga mats, duffel bags, sports bags and water bottles.

The store has one trial room with silver laminate and is absolutely on clean lines, no images or graphics, just one mirror and fixture to hang clothes.

The back wall is the complete shoe wall. It also has a reflective steel panel and panels in metallic blue breaking the monotony of the entire shoe wall. The entire wall is divided into independent panels of different categories of shoes, with effective and clean signages, rendering decision-making easy for customers.

Fluorescent blue lights illuminate the stair case, and the boundary has both white fluorescents with halogens as spotlights directly on the merchandise.

The focussed interiors and window display of this Reebok store thus herald the beginning of worldclass visual merchandising in India, endorsing the global youth through music, technology and sports.

My Summers Experience............

Just had my summer internship with Reebok. Personally speaking it was an outstanding experience.Now with some exposure to the world of retail, I would be able to share what I learnt a little something about VM i.e. Visual Merchandising.

Brand Wars : Its out there on the Billboards !!

Rivalry and competition between brands catering to the same set of consumers has been happening since time immemorial. We've see it happen before, the first of this kind came up in the 1980s, and that too between HP and Modi Xerox. It was only a decade later that cola companies - Coke and Pepsi - took the cue to come up with some witty ads battling each other out on the streets (read billboards!). For a quick recall: Pepsi's response to Coke's "Eat Cricket, Sleep Cricket, Drink Cricket" ad was an ad showing two former cricketers eating bats and sleeping with stumps! Then we even had a name for it –it was christened as the “Cola wars”... And now it's back again - only this time it's another product, an altogether different segment and between more than two players !

Three airline majors - Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Go Air - are fighting it out with their advertising. It all started with Jet putting up a billboard in Mumbai, saying "We've changed". Kingfisher responded by putting up another billboard atop it, saying, "We made them change". A few days later, GoAir came up with one of its own (and at the same spot), saying, "We've not changed. We're still the smartest way to fly."

And that's not all. As if working on the series, Jet came up with another billboard which said, "Fly to New York daily". Kingfisher countered it with "They've flown to New York from here."

What we are seeing could be the result of Jet buying Sahara and Kingfisher responding to it aggressively. Healthy competition is one thing but this is a scathing attack,a serious case of mud slinging (read hitting below the belt) .However unfair it may seem on the face but still the fact of the matter is that its fun to watch the brands fight it out inside the ring and outside too ;-)

P.S : This story was making rounds that the Go Air Billboard was never really put up,and that the print ad being circulated on the web was actually made using photoshop,it even seems so after looking at the Go Air billboard(clearly theres a change in the shading).

The Hutch Pink Story ......

It doesn't matter if you are Black or white,but it surely matters if you are Orange or Pink,the same is evident with Hutch's re-branded look. Sure, the company decided to re-brand its product, get rid of the brand name Orange, as it is called in Mumbai, and bring it under the same umbrella as the other 12 circles in the country. But why pink in particular?

Designed by Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) in collaboration with London-based corporate identity firm Wolff Olins, the new colours will reflect the cohesive face of the new Hutch. So why pink and blue? Colour experts said both pink and blue are new-age colours, increasingly being used in new media such as the internet and TV.

Blue is said to be the colour of success and prosperity as well as a colour that has a universal appeal. Global majors such as IBM and Microsoft as well as Infosys use blue in their logo. Blue also depicts a connection with the masses, a link Hutch cannot afford to weaken. The cool colour depicts freshness. Similarly, pink represents strength, and yet has a young and trendy feel. It is an emotional colour used mostly during festivities such as birthdays and Valentines Day, both aspects which are important for the telecom firm

Hutch decided to change colour for two reasons. First, because of the decision to re-brand Orange as Hutch, and with the colour being such an integral part of the brand name, a change was required. But even otherwise, with Hutch sharpening its peg and penetrating the rural market, it was time to refresh the brand , and the re-branding exercise was being discussed for six months or so prior to the actual execution of it.

The execution involved, on a purely communicative level, outdoor advertising, television, print media, and even signage - changing the signs on every Hutch shop across the country. Radio Mirchi blared out "It's pink!" instead of "It's hot!" for a while. As for internal changes, everything from the Web site to the letterhead to the CEO's visiting card, the uniforms and the interiors of the Hutch outlets were revamped and had to be changed to the new colour. But is the colour a little too loud for a brand that caters to a wide cross-section of people? Well, when the product was launched in the UK ten years ago with orange as the defining colour, it was very unusual for a public that was used to sober colours such as black, white, fawn, navy blue and so on, But it was a brave colour at the time, and similarly now. Pink is the new orange, really, and very few other companies would have the style and confidence to pull it off.

HUTCH: The Boy,The Pug and this Beautiful World !!

The oldest memories of HUTCH in India are associated with the huge white billboards with a human head emerging from the bottom. This was gradually replaced by a full face (no celebrity, just a common face) with a bold ‘Hi’, with no indication of the brand or the company. It was simply amazing as to how the signages caught people’s attention and kept the audience guessing till finally HUTCH announced its arrival with ‘We are Hutch and we are in India’ message.

Infact, no other marketing initiative would have captured so much imagination among the Indian consumers than the HUTCH advertising campaigns inspite of a no-nonsense and uncluttered approach, very “uncharacteristic” of the Indian advertising industry.

Airtel over the years has roped in glamorous celebrities (the Shahrukh Khans ,the Sachins and the Rahmans of the world ),HUTCH on the other hand stuck to its basic branding principle i.e. in simpler words it trusted the pug(Chika) and the boy(his names Jairam ;-) ) to deliver the message (read create the magic) which probably no celebrity could do for them as well.

HUTCH has also had advertising campaigns with celebrities (Rahul Dravid and Irfan Khan) which have been memorable but none more remarkable as the ‘pug and the boy’ with a surprisingly simple, yet effective tagline - ‘Where you go, our network follows’ .

All of HUTCH’s memorable advertising campaigns (the TVCs primarily) are marked by strong visuals, creative work by the agency (O&M India ) and of course the “You and I, in this beautiful world..” theme (composed by Rupert Fernandes ).The theme emphasizes the network reach of HUTCH in the usual effortless yet effective manner. The men behind the campaign, V Mahesh and Rajiv Rao will be remembered not only for making the whole of India sing the advert jingle but also for making the pug one of the most sought-after pets in the country :-)

FYI the pug Chika is owned by a goan couple and has also starred in a couple of Bollywood movies ;-)

Was surfing the net when i came across this advertising campaign for Accessorize (a ladies accessories store in Switzerland and U.K).This would qualify as a piece of Guerilla marketing (minimum costs for maximum impact). Though the effectiveness of the campaign cannot be guaged(as to how many people exposed to the ad actually go ahead and make a purchase), but it is something which is definitely hard to miss.

Created by Saatchi & Saatchi Simko, giant necklaces adorn the streets creating barriers across steps and between bollards, with appropriately scaled-up swing tags attached promoting the website details.

I checked up the Accessorize website too.Would say a good idea in theory, unfortunately let down by the very poor website. But it does at least give information on the six stores in Switzerland, and links to the UK site (click to open the link)which is far more impressive.