Sunday 27 March 2011

Smart Advertising


A smarter way to success for the new-age SMEs


There’s an old saying that there’s no short-cut to success. But as the times are changing, we modify it a little.  There’s no shorter way, but yes, there’s a smarter way to achieve big. Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) of India seem to exemplify it. And what is making them smarter achievers is the new-age advertising.
There were times when advertising – from radio to print to TV - was the bastion for the large and cash-rich companies. Most ads used to belong to the FMCG or service industry sector. It’s not that smaller setups or not-so-recognized products never needed any marketing or communication to consumers. But advertising was something that was expensive for them. Especially, communication to the masses through electronic or print media was an expensive way-out. Besides, till the last decade, a number of small businesses could not understand what wonder could be created even with low-budget advertising. 
 
With the growing ambitions, and advent of innovative branding, marketing and advertising tools, various small businesses are creating a paradigm shift. They are now focusing on innovative advertising to attract attention to their brands. One of the examples is Wagh Bakari Tea that has registered 20-30% rise in sales revenues which is a result of innovative commercial ads and promotional campaign. 

Matter of fact is that there’re various products for which targeted advertising hits the bull’s eye. Reaching out to the clearly focused Target Group becomes more beneficial than just spreading the message far and wide. Nowadays, there’re various advertising agencies that’re working exclusively for rural marketing and adverting. They look out the best and cost-effective ad campaigns alongside direct mailers, events, leaflets, pamphlets, banners, etc.  

It’s a different way to reaching out to one’s target audience. As the communication should touch the emotional chord with the consumers. So that the ad should be able to meet the greater objective of awareness of the brand and association with it. 

The emergence of internet and mobile telephony gave a push to the tailor-made advertising for SMES.  Suddenly broadcasting has become affordable and doing it via mobile and internet has begun to find favour over TV, print and radio. 

The annual Media Futures survey shows that national advertisers intend to increase their marketing budgets in 2011, with almost all sectors of mainstream media are set to benefit.

The survey, released in February, shows that the top 600 advertisers (by expenditure) intend to commit big bucks to advertising on the internet, with search and display anticipated to be the biggest beneficiary of ad expenditure. In fact, advertisers predicted that internet search and display would grow this year by 23.6% and 19.6% respectively this year.

This has expanded Indian advertising market by an order of magnitude never imagined before. So now is the time small and medium businesses can easily go beyond classified ads and venture into more creative advertising.