Mission and Values

In his book “Winning” Jack Welch has described about the mission statement and values of company. According to him, the mission announces exactly where you are going and values describe the behaviors that will get you there.

Mission: Setting the mission is top management’s responsibility. A mission cannot and must not be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it. In fact a mission is the defining moment for a company’s leadership.

An effective mission statement basically answers one question: How do we intend to win in this business? It doesn’t answer: What were we good at in the good old days? Nor does it answer: How can we describe our business so that no particular unit or division or senior executive gets pissed off?

It requires companies to make choice about people, investments and other resources and it prevents them from falling into the common mission trap of asserting they will be all things to all people at all times. The question forces companies to delineate their strength and weaknesses in order to assess where they can profitably play in competitive landscape. Without financial success, all the societal goals in the world don’t have a chance. That’s not saying a mission shouldn’t be bold or aspirational. Effective mission statements balance the possible and impossible. They give people a clear sense of direction to profitability and inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.

GE’s mission from 1981 to 1995 was they were going to be “ The most competitive enterprise in the world” by being No. 1 or no. 2 in every market – fixing, selling or closing every underperforming business that couldn’t get there. This is specific and descriptive, with nothing abstract going on. And it was aspirational, too, in its global ambition.

Values: Values are just behaviors – specific, nitty-gritty, and so descriptive they leave little to the imagination. People must be able to use them as marching orders because they are the how of the mission, the means to the end-winning. The actual process of creating values, incidentally, has to be iterative. The executive team may come up with a first version, but it should be just that a first version. Such a document should go out to be poked and probed by all over an organization over and over again. And executive team go out of this way to be sure they’ve created an atmosphere where people feel it their obligation to contribute.

Clarity around values and behaviors is not much good unless it is backed up. To make values really mean something, companies must reward people who exhibit them and punish those who don’t. t will make winning easier. A concrete mission is great. And values that describe specific behaviors are too. But for a company’s mission and values to truly work together as a winning proposition, they have to be mutually reinforcing. A company’s values should support its mission.

The Tata Companies share a set of five core values derived from the Group’s early beliefs – and these are still drive all business decisions: Integrity, Understanding, Excellence, Unity and Responsibility.

A company’s mission and its values rupture due to little crises of daily life in business. Suppose a competitor moves into town and lowers prices, and so do you, undermining your mission of competing on extreme customer service. Or a downturn hits, so you cut your advertisement budget, forgetting your mission is to enhance and extend your brand. These examples of disconnections may sound minor or temporary, but when left unattended, they can really hurt a company.

People in business talk a lot about mission and values but too often the result is more hot air than real action. But there is too much to lose by not getting your mission straight and by not making your values concrete.

Media Innovations

Media agencies plays a very important role for positioning of any product or services which are invention of creative minds. Invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process, while innovation is the first attempt to carry it out into practice. Innovation begin with creative ideas and ends with the succesfull implementation of those creative ideas. Media agencies play a very important role in this context. Media agencies always get excited with the word innovatoin. Here we will discuss some of the media innovations from the recent past.

Saffola and BBC World service trust were at the top of the media innovaion last year.

Last year on world heart day, the refined oil brand tied up with six radio stations in Mumbai to spread the message on Heart care. “The task was to coax listeners, who are otherwise passive and lethargic about their health to spare a thought for their heart,” With all radio stations playing the sound of heart beat in a particular time band minus any music jingle, it created a god impact with about 8,000 people opting for a cholestrol test after listening to the campaign.

Next pick is the ‘Say Condom Aloud’ campaign done for BBC World Service Trust. The activity started with the ‘Say CONDOM Aloud’ campaign aired across TV, radio and cinema halls. In the second leg, the words ‘Kabaddi’ used by the players got replaced with the word ‘Condom’ in the game. In a country like India, getting people to say the word ‘Condom’ aloud without any embarrasment was the challenge. The campaign was well received and as per NACO, condom sale through govt. channel grew by 5 million unit.

A public health campaigne done by media agency for Colgate to promote the dental care brand’s oral health camps. The difference herein was getting the lead character of popular serials on Star Plus to espouse the merits of such an initiative without sticking out like a sore thumb. E.g. “If the serial was Baa Bahu Aur Baby, then the camp would be spoken about in a comic situation which goes well with the theme of the program.” it was a welcome change from print and TV and is cost effective compared to paying for commercial spots. The result — an increase of 35% registrations for the oral care camp,

The work done for TVS scooty Women on wheels lists as one of the good work done last year. It is a very gud example of women empowerment. TVS wanted to create relevance and need for the brand among women in small-town and non-metros. The scooty Institutes was set up to promote learning riding a two wheeler among women, with promotion through leaflets, posters and calenders in local languages.

Another interesting outdoor campaign was a campaign done by Euro RSCG for Good people India, A talent sourcing firm, where exterior window cleaning lifts on skyscrapers were branded with the message ‘Jobs Available’

Similarly a hoarding by Bingo in Mumbai caught the eye due to the bright colours and a rotating triangular potato chip to promote its variant Mad Angles.

Source: Road less travelled(ET-Brand Equity)

Gray Markets

Gray markets arise when a manufacturer’s products are sold outside of its authorized channels, for instance when goods designated for a foreign market are resold domestically. A grey market or gray market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer. In contrast, a black market is the trade of goods and services that are illegal in them and/or distributed through illegal channels, such as the selling of stolen goods or illegal items such as heroin or unregistered handguns.

In gray markets, the goods are sold outside normal distribution channels by companies which may have no relationship with the producer of the goods. A private person or business purchases the good at retail, wholesale, or a discounted price, and attempts to resell it legally at a higher price. Examples of industries with active gray markets include pharmaceuticals, automobiles, and electronics.

Importing certain legally restricted items such as prescription drugs or firearms would be categorized as black market, as would smuggling the goods into the target country to avoid import duties. A related concept is bootlegging, the smuggling or transport of highly regulated goods, especially alcoholic beverages. The term "bootlegging" is also often applied to the production or distribution of counterfeit or pirated goods.

The gray market is extremely hard to track, because once a good is sold to an unauthorized dealer, the manufacturer has no way of tracking the sale of the goods. The gray market exists just about everywhere. Under some circumstances, different countries have different markets for different goods. When a person takes advantage of the disparity in market prices of a particular good, it is called arbitrage. An arbitrageur takes advantage of this disparity by buying a good in a country where it is significantly cheaper, then reselling it legally in another country where they can demand a higher price. For eg. The grey market in wine flourishes, particularly in the case of champagne. Many large champagne producers do their own importing, and desire to maintain independent price points in different markets. Thus a bottle of Champagne might cost US$35 in the United States while the same bottle might be only 15 Euros in France. It is often profitable to buy the wine in Europe from an authorized distributor, and resell it in the US.

One drawback of the gray market is that many manufacturers will not honor warranties on electronics purchased through it. Because the good is not purchased through “authorized” channels, manufacturers refuse to spend the money to honor the warranty. One of the ways that manufacturers identify items resold on the gray market is by putting different model numbers on the same product in different countries. When someone calls for warranty issues, they can identify whether their product was sold in the correct country. The warranty cannot usually be enforced, because it was sold through a third party in a different country.

On securities markets, grey market has a different meaning. It refers to the buying and selling of securities to be issued in the future and, therefore not yet circulating. This typically occurs some days before an auction of government bonds or bills and that trading is subject to the effective issue of those securities. Sometimes this is taken as a forecast of the prices that markets expect for future issues.

Authorized agents and sellers are most often financially affected by the gray market, because they lose business to unauthorized sellers. Local laws can help or hurt the gray market. In some cases, food is difficult to resell because local laws dictate packaging, so what is legal in one state or country may not be in another. On the one hand, consumer advocates and governments have applauded the increasing role that gray markets have played in improving competition for domestic goods.

Low tariffs and free trade are beneficial to the gray market, but manufacturers and big business lobby constantly to enact laws to make it difficult for gray marketers to do business. This, coupled with advances in technology, make the most popular goods difficult to resell on the gray market.

Marketing during Recession

The global economy has already moved into recession. Businesses are tightening their budgets and many of them are cutting their marketing budget. These are tough times and companies are laying off employees. Predictions about job losses and credit crunch make one nervous about the near future. It is important to understand that cutting marketing budget can often cause more harm to the growth of the business.

“For well-positioned companies, an economic recession should not prompt marketing cutbacks, but rather an aggressive increase in marketing spending to achieve superior business performance” according to research authored by Gary Lilien and Arvind Rangaswamy of Penn State's Smeal College of Business. It's not time to cut the marketing budget, it's time to re-evaluate your marketing and analyze what is working and what's not. Take time to explore new options of marketing that cost less, but can still deliver the results you are looking for.

Much of the problems are happening in the financial sectors but analysts are predicting that consumer markets are going to face the music in the near future.

So what should a marketer do in times of recession?

Cut cost: Cut costs and not investments. Invest in your brand, put lot of advertisements but cut cost in media, raw materials etc. You may have to spend less on marketing, not because marketing should be cut first or most (it most certainly should not), but because your company may cut budgets across the board. In fact, by showing how you intend to spend smarter, you will make it easier to fight for your resources. It’s more risky to invest in new products during recession times, if you cannot, then cut your cost. If your company is the lowest cost producer then you have a better chance of survival.

Invest smartly: In every downturn there are market segments that grow faster than others. It's your job as a marketer to help your company see and understand these market segments, and determine whether you can quickly win business in those fast-growing market segments. Usually the initial reaction by marketers in respond to recession is to cut marketing cost. On the contrary, its time to invest in brands. You will be heard when all others are shutting their marketing mouths. Bargain with the media for the rates and invest in building your brand.

Double-down on your current customers: Sure it's more fun to get new customers, but it's more practical in a downturn to provide more value (and get more in return) from your current customers. Listen and understand your customers. When customers make decisions in a downturn, they're more likely to go with a more trusted source. If they're more likely to go with you, then you want to make it easier and more obvious to them to go with you. Market to them. Enable your sales teams to be more effective with them. So when customers start tightening their purse, you can do that too. Also they will tell you how much they can pay you. Listen to that and do it.

Care for them, and they will be even more likely to stick with you if the going gets tough.

Diversify for Development: If your business depends primarily on one industry that is being hit hard, look for other sales avenues within it. Identify new channels, product applications and partnerships that compliment your business. These may be segments you're already selling to, but not particularly focused on; or they may represent new segments—and new opportunities for your company. The result will be increased visibility and awareness in the marketplace, prospecting opportunities and broader market appeal.

Time to introspect: Recession is a good period for marketers to take an objective look at their brand portfolio. This is the time to see which brand in your portfolio offers more value to the consumer. If your sales are going down like hell, it’s the time to re-engineer the brand's value proposition. Remember Wal-Mart makes more money during the recession than during good-times.

Only those brands will survive who is prepared for a recession even during the sunny days. Companies that ‘bury their heads in the sand’ by cutting back on prospecting while waiting for the economy to improve are leaving the window wide open for competitors to gobble up sales.

• Procter and Gamble - During the Great Depression they pushed Ivory soap.
• Intel - In 1990-1991 during economic difficulty they pushed out the campaign "Intel Inside".
• Wal-mart - Walmart launched their "Every Day Low Prices" campaign in 2000-2001.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford