How Soy Sauce Captured The American Dream?

How many times did you hear the term 'think from the outside in'? And how many times did you not follow its meaning? Well if the answer to either of the question is 'pretty often', you are reading the correct post.

Let me decipher the meaning in simplest of ways. Think from outside in propagates the idea of thinking from the customer's point of view towards the brand rather than the other way around. At the heart, outside-in thinking is a commitment to manage customer experience and ensure an explicit customer reason is in every decision. As marketers we need to be cognizant that customers' interests take precedent and are embedded throughout the process.

Defining it is easy, but practicing the process in reality is a bit difficult. It's a behavioral change and needs a lot of unlearning to kill the preemptive authority of our minds. One such brand did it perfectly. Here's a little story on how it managed to accept new culture and transform itself to scale sales.

Kikkoman is the world's largest seller of soy sauce - the biggest marketer, in fact the most successful marketer of soy sauce. They hail from Japan and were soon eyeing the very large food and beverage market of the US of A. They entered the US in the 1950s, as most Japanese firms do, from the west coast in California. Soon sales started and the product was primarily aimed towards the Asian grocery stores. Before they realized, Kikkoman was in a soup, unfortunately not literally but figuratively, and that was a bad news. They were selling very low volumes and the reason given by the commercial team was obvious, Americans do not consume soy sauce. It's a foreign product, rather an exotic product. We all know how the word 'exotic' is used with almost everything related to Asia - exotic drinks, exotic beaches, exotic food and what not. So it wasn't a surprise that Soy sauce got labelled as an exotic Asian product too. The sales & marketing teams, couldn't figure out how to unriddle the tricky situation in order to sell more. In moments like this sometimes we need to reason with our mind and have the patience to look beyond the obvious. That's exactly what the chairman of the company did. He visited US with the singular objective of studying the way American consumers consumed their food. After minute observation, he gathered a very important insight.

There were two main difference between the way Americans and Japanese eat their food. One is that Americans don't eat a lot of Sushi compared to Japanese. When you eat sushi (if you haven't tried it out, go easy on the wasabi sauce. It turns up the heat in lesser time than you can think of framing a sentence), you dip it in soy sauce. In those days, soy sauce wasn't that prevalent other than with sushi. So no sushi pretty much took the ball out of the court. Second major difference was, Americans eat a lot more beef. Beef was much more expensive in Japan. With these two insights in the marketing arsenal, Kikkoman started re-strategising. They brainstormed and pondered that rather than changing the Americans to behave like Japanese consumers, why don't they change the way and make the product more acceptable to the Americans? This simple contemplation led to the invention of 'Teriyaki' (rings a bell?). it's a barbecue marinade that was made for American consumers to dip their large pieces of beef meat in the barbecue and then throw the marinade out. Voila! The volume of Soy Sauce went through the roof.

Kikkoman through hard work removed the cultural barrier and presented itself with the opportunity for prosperity and success. The very ethos of the great American Dream. A huge lesson here. Rather than trying to get a consumer  to change to our way, change the product in a way so that it founds meaning and acceptance in their daily lives.

The Game Behind Game Of Thrones...

Do you still think that you do marketing for your company? Well, think hard.

We, the marketing fraternity, can talk about our great product or service all day, but self-promotion can't contest with the kind of credibility and authority that comes from consumer stories. Traditional marketing is in ICU and on life support. The rules of the game have changed. Today's consumer is independent, empowered, and their voice of reason increasingly affects the opinions and experiences of people like them. It allows heavy lifting of your brand that resonates and stick with your targeted group of consumers.

As a new age marketer, it's imperative that you are also a smart strategist and one who understands consumer's pulse better. The magic trick is to facilitate platform and provide opportunities. Be the enabler which would help your consumers express themselves. If you can make them fall in love with your brand, your consumers will spread the word, create content and grow your brand. But the question is, how do you make them fall in love with your brand or product?

At the onset, we should deprioritize targeting markets. While doing the segmentation exercise, we think about market size, age, gender, etc. We spend most of our time behind this. Maybe we should start targeting people. Understand their ecosystem, what triggers a response out of them, what kind of social interactions they prefer, what excites them, etc. Once we have successfully profiled our consumers, we can group them with similar characteristics under one category and begin our engagement. Thereby, kick-starting the community marketing program.

The beauty about building community is that it isn't just about the brand, but also people making connections with each other. Think about this. As a consumer, what are you most likely to do? Follow, like and comment on a particular individual's/brand's blog, or spend more time in a community, where you have like-minded people to discuss/debate on your favorite topics? If you choose to do the latter, you and I would soon become best of pals! But if you're not convinced, yet, read the below tale about a brand who is reaping benefits.

HBO definitely takes the iron throne with their social marketing for Game of Thrones (GoT), an original series of books authored by George R.R. Martin which, after becoming a televised series, has broken all viewership records and won numerous awards and accolades. So what made the show such a runaway success? Apart from the gritty story, action, voyeurism, dragons, Cersei's evil plans, John Snow's honesty and Tyrion's intelligence; it is also about how the excitement among fans is articulated across every strand of media. In fact, GoT episode ratings have started to rank as HBO's most watched  show since 2007. Crunch this data. The Season 4 finale had a whooping 19 million cumulative viewers. Mind you, the number doesn't  account for the real viewership as the episode was also the most illegally downloaded one across the world.

So how did HBO achieve this success? They managed to ride the the wave by getting fans involved in conversations, while also using creative campaigns to re-kindle the fire between the episodes in seasons. One of the show's most successful  social efforts was the #RoastJoffrey. It was the first social media roast where fans, celebrities and even show's cast sent in taunts and jokes. In its first 48 hours, it collected more than 60,000 roasts, 1 million interactions and 850 million impressions. Time for slow clap.

There was also a 30-day countdown to the season 4 premiere called Beautiful Death, which featured many graphic illustrations representing a significant death  from every episode, and also asked fans to submit their own artwork. Why death? Well one can argue that deaths in GoT are pretty important and central to the plot. They're shocking and gruesome, but also beautiful.

Recently during Red Nose Day, a campaign dedicated to alleviate condition for children and young people living in poverty by raising money, GoT casts got in touch with Coldplay and made a musical as part of the larger charity effort. It attracted over 8 million hits on youtube and was shared on various social media sites. The effort helped raise $21 million. Apart from being a smash hit ROI strategy, it also elevated the brand's character in the minds of its consumers. There you go, that's the way to make consumers fall in love. Here, take a look at it yourself.

HBO has channelized GoT fans' enthusiasm to fuel its marketing. They amplified the speculation and conversation that happened around the characters and always looked for ways to capitalize and reward fans. The GoT community even overshadowed the author's own blog. It is abundantly clear that communities are more endearing when the relationships are many-to-many. Communities will thrive because of consumers. And, as marketers, we should  keep stoking the engagement fire.

Now, if you still prefer to follow, like and comment on a particular individual's/brand's blog over a community, no hard feelings. But do remember to share my blog post there.

Cheers!

Think Like A Foodie And Develop A Big Appetite For Risks

Things change, even if we don't want them to. Cliched? Yes. But if you pay no heed, it will be the last nail in the coffin. But it's not easy keeping pace with change. And maybe that's why we should start thinking like our foodie friend. We all know what our friend does, try different cuisines at different places. Embrace new possibilities in exploring the world of food because you never know what would you end up loving. It's a risk. Risk of investing money on to something which you might regret. Risk of spending time and energy behind something which might not live up to the expectations. But for our foodie friend that's the way of life. They always like to try out new things. And when they succeed, the joy is contagious.

Risk appetite doesn't come naturally to everybody. It's deceptive and requires an organization to analyze how much risk would be required in order to attain appropriate or sought-after returns. In real life, answer to this challenge is very difficult. And what makes it so difficult? Efforts to quantify risk appetite may produce an illusion of precision. Having said so, if risk appetite is properly understood and well articulated, it becomes a very powerful tool, not only for managing risk, but re-positioning your brand preference around your customers' ecosystem.So there you go. By definition, it's a double-edged sword which can either help you demolish your competition, or annihilate you from the inside.

Like always, it's time when the post gets interesting. I am going to tell you a couple of stories where the risk appetite of marketers reaped huge benefits for the brand. It shattered the mindset of maintaining status quo and became a benchmark for innovation.

Who can forget the giant leap by Red Bull?

Felix Baumgartner's record shattering 24 mile (39 Km) space jump has put the Austrian skydriver into the history books. But it leapfrogged Red Bull into a higher stratosphere. The marketing stunt, which complemented the brand slogan - Red Bull Gives You Wings, engaged over 7 million people via social media with over 685,000 Facebook fans and 245,000 Twitter followers. A record of 8 billion  viewers watched the live stream of the skydiving resulting in invaluable exposure of the Red Bull brand. The 'space jump' helped Red Bull to expand in core markets and newer geographies such as Brazil and Japan. It sold 5.2 billion cans, a 13% increase over the year prior, and varied markets like South Africa, France & Germany saw a double-digit growth. And what was the great thing behind all these? People didn't even know that it was a carefully planned marketing promotional event. But here comes the most interesting part. Seeing a chance to emulate promotional success, Google's SVP, Alan Eustace, tried a skydive attempt and actually broke Felix's record. But very few people are aware of it. So the learning is - the guy that takes a chance first gets the reward.

How to launch a car in a marketplace where the company had no presence? This was a big problem which was being discussed at Fiat's executive boardroom in the UK. The Fiat 500L represented the company's first foray  into the family car market. The car has been designed to plug a gap in the market for stylish yet practical family car. Fiat decided to take a risk. They created the campaign plan centered around young mothers. What, a big jolt to your male ego? If so, take a moment, do a slow breathing exercise and continue reading. Fiat's idea was to create a powerful story through a mother's eyes. They realized that Mum is the lynch-pin in any young family. Fiat wanted to connect with dynamic young mums, in a way that demonstrated their ability to understand the challenges of balancing between a life of a mother vis-a-vis their desire to keep hold of their pre-children identity. They hoped that by dramatizing the reality of becoming a new mum in this way, they will raise a knowing smile from mums and will recognize how the car will bring a touch of glamour into their family lives. Thus the 'motherhood' campaign was born. The first of its kind musical-rap fusion film featured a harassed mother, in a messy house besieged by young kids, raps ironically about her world - sleepless nights, eating leftover food. It is far from the usual depiction of cars cruising through beautiful scenery. Here, take a look at the film. It is absolutely genius of a work.

Was the idea successful? Well to start with, the video gained over 2000,000 Youtube views in just a day or two. A vast online buzz was created and shared across social media achieving rich engagement and brand conversation prior to the launch. The film featured in Sunday Times and on the Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail websites, BBC radio and earned many more media coverage achieving over 2.5 million GBP worth of PR. Importantly the brand which had no resonance in this segment and tested uncharted waters, launched the car with an 11% increase in enquiries over the popular segments. The popularity also meant Fiat had to later develop a 'fatherhood' campaign, as the males didn't want to miss-out on the fun and wanted the company to tell their side of the story as well. A real marketing triumph.

Today, the business landscape has changed from a controlled environment to open source. While it is easy and natural to crave for consistency and avoid risk, the changing nature of how consumer chooses to engage with a brand requires marketing to adapt and to take chances in order to survive, differentiate and thrive. Now, I am a firm believer that Marketers are risk-takers by birth. It's in their blood. They are fearless and creative, two significant attributes which help harness the culture of taking risks. Risk-taking in marketing stems from innovation and it should be embraced by the organization and get embedded in the brand strategy. And how does that help? It breaks barriers and redefines the way a brand can talk to its customers. The brand gets a new avatar which results in new customer acquisition and at the same time converting existing customers into brand followers.

The last word. Marketing is not for faint-hearted. Learn to take the leap of faith.