Blue Star's cool thinking

Summer can be horribly hot and sweaty in India. Temperatures sore and so does heated debates and egos. Summer is a time when the AC brands in India also get active. They spend millions trying to persuade consumers to buy their AC's. But like most categories, the AC category, which is a sub-class of the White Goods category has its own conventions and cliches. You will notice that the moment you turn on your TV. Brands like LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Voltas, Onida are all fighting for market share with some really boring, unexciting propositions. Nothing much has changed over the years. The creative executions are even more pathetic.

The top three propositions are often:

1. Equal cooling at all corners of the house.

2. Anti-germ, anti-bacterial and clean air.

3. The most energy efficient AC for your home.

Cut to Blue Star. Blue Star, the AC brand has been the market leader in office cooling or air-conditioning solutions for commercial complexes. They created some memorable advertisements claiming their expertise in cooling solutions.

Blue Star recently ventured into the home cooling segment. And they brilliantly integrated their proposition of being an "cooling expert" from offices to home. Now that's the brilliance of good strategic thinking. When you're positioned as an expert, you build on that. You don't look for lame propositioning which leads to boring creative communication to persuade consumers. Blue Star found an excellent proposition that builds on their expertise at office and smoothly integrated that with the task at hand - home cooling. The result - Get office like cooling at home. Now thats refreshing. A nice execution helps you stand apart too.

Good work Blue Star. Look forward to some more refreshing creative work from you.

Co-Marketing - The new mantra

The industry is heading in the right direction. Here I mentioned how co-marketing can redefine marketing in India, if only our noble marketers did some serious thinking. With so many good examples floating around I can't help but think optimistically about the future of co-marketing in India.

If you thought LG & Prada's KE850 was an object of true desire then Ladies and Gentlemen, hold your breath. Bang & Olufsen has joined hands with Samsung to bring the ultimate music phone of the year. The Serenata. The website says "Two icons of excellence come together in Serenata, a music player and a mobile phone in one. It's high quality on a higher level, with the advanced acoustics, interface experience and design ingenuity of Bang & Olufsen combined with the intelligent mobile phone engineering of Samsung."

To take the Serenata, a step forward, B&O and Samsung has roped in ECM Records (I'm a big fan of Jan Garbarek whom they launched in the early days) to provide some pleasing music to the ears. Now this is what I call 'Innovative Thinking.' Co-creating meaningful products by sharing each others strength and expertise. And then marketing it together.

This is a bigger Marketing Ideal. It is about understanding the need and then finding a right partner to develop the right product for the right audience. I'm looking forward to some more examples of co-marketing and co-creation. So with the new year approaching us, can we expect to see some innovative marketing from India Inc.? Or is it we will still look at west, read their case studies and try to follow their foot steps? Co-marketing according to me has huge potential in India. The recent "Diamond Bride" commercial on air is decent example, unfortunately its only an advertising idea. Not a big marketing ideal. Will there be a change in the 2008 marketing mantra? Let's keep our mind open. We might just strike gold. And many thanks Harshal for sharing the link with me. Keep sending more examples like this.

Update: Here is another exciting news. Media join hands with Airline to provide in-flight magazine. Exciting times ahead.

Cheers.