Should online brands be advertising on television? If yes, when? This is a debate that gets stirred up whenever a young online brand starts becoming high profile on TV. Having been in the seat of a marketing decision-maker for a successful Internet company, this was a question we came across every year and the decisions we took whether we should be on TV or not was based on a simple analysis of where the source of our business was - in our case, where were the resumes coming from.
The mind started working the same logic when I saw the television advertisement of flipkart.com. As most of us know, Flipkart started out as an online book store but has now added new categories such as movies, mobiles, music, games, etc., to its product range. If we were to focus on Flipkart's book business (which I assume is still the biggest category for them), here's a simple representation of their source of business.
Given the above scenario, my marketing priority would be dependent on the size of the opportunity in each box and my own market status.
1. If I am a market leader and Box 'C' is a substantial opportunity and is bigger than Box 'B', my priority would be on Box 'C' followed by Box 'B'.
2. If I am a market leader (by far and not a marginal leader) and Box 'C' is a small opportunity, my priority would be to retain my current franchise while attempting to expand the market i.e., Box 'D'.
3. If I am not a market leader and Box 'C' is a substantial opportunity and is bigger than Box 'A', my priority would be on Box 'C' followed by Box 'A'.
4. If I am not a market leader and Box 'C' is a small opportunity, my priority would be to go after Box 'A' because that's where the volumes are. If one attempts the market expansion strategy (Box 'D') as a trailer brand, it would be counter-productive and the brand should be prepared to cede most of the expansion benefits to the market leader.
Today's online medium (personally, am a big fan of Google AdWords) with its rich social opportunities is ideally built to accomplish tasks in Box 'A', 'B' and 'C' highly efficiently. Box 'D' is an option that should be explored only when opportunities from the first three boxes have been fully leveraged.
Flipkart's current strategy seems to suggest that it's a market leader by far and that Box 'C' is a small opportunity. Hence, the need to go offline and attempt market expansion.
Flipkart should ask itself the following two questions.
1. Is it already much bigger than all its competition put together?
2. Are most Indians on the Internet already buying books online?
If the answer to the above two questions is "No", Flipkart's campaign foray into TV seems premature.
At the end of the day, the millions spent on TV should help the brand register a sizeable uptick in sales in the short term (I do not subscribe to the view that TV advertising brings in long term salience and need not necessarily result in higher sales during the campaign period. If I am spending money on TV, I better see higher sales on site. Else, either the creative or the media was a wrong choice!).
I personally like the experience of buying on Flipkart and I do hope the brand is seeing an upward graph in its sales during the campaign period attributable to its TV campaign. However, my personal view is that if the money spent on the TV campaign was spent on online marketing, it would have given the brand far bigger sales leverage. And this point has nothing to do with the quality of the campaign creative!
The mind started working the same logic when I saw the television advertisement of flipkart.com. As most of us know, Flipkart started out as an online book store but has now added new categories such as movies, mobiles, music, games, etc., to its product range. If we were to focus on Flipkart's book business (which I assume is still the biggest category for them), here's a simple representation of their source of business.
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| Representation of Flipkart's likely source of business |
1. If I am a market leader and Box 'C' is a substantial opportunity and is bigger than Box 'B', my priority would be on Box 'C' followed by Box 'B'.
2. If I am a market leader (by far and not a marginal leader) and Box 'C' is a small opportunity, my priority would be to retain my current franchise while attempting to expand the market i.e., Box 'D'.
3. If I am not a market leader and Box 'C' is a substantial opportunity and is bigger than Box 'A', my priority would be on Box 'C' followed by Box 'A'.
4. If I am not a market leader and Box 'C' is a small opportunity, my priority would be to go after Box 'A' because that's where the volumes are. If one attempts the market expansion strategy (Box 'D') as a trailer brand, it would be counter-productive and the brand should be prepared to cede most of the expansion benefits to the market leader.
Today's online medium (personally, am a big fan of Google AdWords) with its rich social opportunities is ideally built to accomplish tasks in Box 'A', 'B' and 'C' highly efficiently. Box 'D' is an option that should be explored only when opportunities from the first three boxes have been fully leveraged.
Flipkart's current strategy seems to suggest that it's a market leader by far and that Box 'C' is a small opportunity. Hence, the need to go offline and attempt market expansion.
Flipkart should ask itself the following two questions.
1. Is it already much bigger than all its competition put together?
2. Are most Indians on the Internet already buying books online?
If the answer to the above two questions is "No", Flipkart's campaign foray into TV seems premature.
At the end of the day, the millions spent on TV should help the brand register a sizeable uptick in sales in the short term (I do not subscribe to the view that TV advertising brings in long term salience and need not necessarily result in higher sales during the campaign period. If I am spending money on TV, I better see higher sales on site. Else, either the creative or the media was a wrong choice!).
I personally like the experience of buying on Flipkart and I do hope the brand is seeing an upward graph in its sales during the campaign period attributable to its TV campaign. However, my personal view is that if the money spent on the TV campaign was spent on online marketing, it would have given the brand far bigger sales leverage. And this point has nothing to do with the quality of the campaign creative!
