Comeback marketing… What is that about? Well, you all know Burger King, this hamburger fast food chain store once opened its door for business in Indonesia, sometimes in the 80’s/early 90’s. But for whatever reason it closed down and Indonesia had its burger shot from McDonalds, A&W, Wendy’s, the not so dead but not alive Jolly Bee, the deceased Arbys, the recently opened hotshots and the many small local burger joints. All of them are barely survive on selling just burgers, or they shift their selling strategy and survive by selling something that the Indonesian market wanted. McDonalds nowadays sells more fried chicken then burger, so are A&W, Wendy’s and the likes. This is because as most Indonesians’ are Muslims so chicken are considerably safest animal to eat, it’s also cheap. So how are the burger only joints? They suffer, they choke, they are dieing sloooooooooooooooowly, case in point, Hotshots. If you happen to read this and live in Jakarta, at Kelapa Gading area, just go to La Piazza and see the void of buyers at Hotshots counter. The burger itself is one of the nicest, I love it… But it’s price is something to be left for the rich to enjoy.

So, a burger joint is not the best idea to open in Indonesia is it? Not really, and here it is, comeback marketing in its full glory! Burger King is back and what do you know? They have 4 registers, and each are full of people queuing to buy the burger. How can this be? How can something that came back from the dead sell something in a place where people don’t necessarily consume that particular product?

The answer is very simple my friends… Coming back from the dead or in the case of Burger King, a hiatus, is sometimes a good thing. Sun Tzu mentions that retreating is a way to live and fight back another day, therefore there is no shame on doing that. Burger King while on its hiatus really done their marketing work carefully, and answers what Indonesian’s really wanted, affordable and fresh.

So Burger King now adopts an open kitchen concept where customers can see their product being cooked directly in front of them (with safety glass of course), and what do you know, it’s quite cheap. One average burger of Burger King is half the prices of Hotshots burger, which are freshly grilled also, with the same gimmick Burger King used.

Comeback marketing is not simple, and like the above example I haven’t elaborate more on the subject… Hey! It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and I haven’t slept yet! So pardon my absent minds. I will elaborate more next week, but let me give you all a snippet. Comeback marketing is tricky; first you need to know why the company left a particular region at the beginning. Then, you need to know why they are coming back to that region. Lastly you need to know how the company are going to approach the surely changed social condition of the market… Till next week.

So about my insomnia… according to Wikipedia, I have a transient insomnia, caused by a short term anxiety… D’oh, I’m broke and there are really important stuff I need to buy. Ah, what the heck… I’m used to being depressed and my body is starting to shut off anyway. Damn it! Tomorrow is a busy day too, I’m really hoping for that day when I can sleep, knowing that when I wake up, there’s that special somebody next to me.

Well, it’s that time again finish the week with a closing comment of my cluttered and crazy approach to make sense of a cluttered and crazy marketing and the world in general. First let’s discuss about why Honda still insists using female model to promote Vario whereas Suzuki and Yamaha promote their competing product with both female and male (you’ll be surprised). On part two we will discuss about the silly termed comeback marketing and (if anybody cares) about my insomnia attack.

If I may talk seriously for a while… Why Suzuki and Yamaha uses two person that represent all group of users is that… Dum dum dum dum… They are just an average joe and jane, they are not celebrity, heck! They are not even famous… But Honda? Whew, Honda uses Agnes Monica, the current Indonesia’s hottest sexiest actress/singer/public figure/what not (I didn’t find her hot or sexy though). In advertising term, Honda is using Celebrity endorsement campaign, where in one; a celebrity becomes the representation of that product image and positioning. But is it effective?

Celebrity endorsed advertisement is like the debate of the century in the marketing world. Who actually benefited from the relationship between the celebrity and the product/brand? From one perspective, the advertiser expect that the celebrity star status will stick to their product, giving it a faster recall on the target market and audience minds. However, there is the catch that the advertiser actually promotes the celebrity and actually making the celebs more famous because of the extra “air time” and the product… Meh, what product? I just saw the celebrity on that ad.

On 2003, Madhukar Sabnavis, country manager for Discovery, Ogilvy and Mather India even wrote on rediff.com that celebrity endorsement is a diseases, stating that it (celebrity endorsement) sprout from advertising agency/marketer inability to promote the product using its own strength. Ouch… Madhukar even goes to state that celebrity endorsement is just an easy way out… More ouch.

I couldn’t agree more with Madhukar… (if you guys noticed, I used the name quite often, because I don’t know if Madhukar is a female or male). Sometimes the use of a celebrity will bring about the cult following effect, where fans of the celebrity will expectedly uses the product she/he is selling. However, this became a trap also for the hiring party… Why? Because that celebrity person needs to be used again and again and again and again… Buuuuuuuuuut, today people are getting smarter you know. If you read at my post entitled “Hypocrisy Marketing, the worst kind…” people nowadays are able to discern paid individuals to endorse product. So does that means something? YES! It means that people know that celebrity is just another paid individuals and their credibility is going down. So instead of using high paid celebrity, why not just use average joe/jane to promote the product?

With agreement on Madhukar excerpt , I see that Honda is just wanting to take the easy route, using celebrity to promote their product, whereas Suzuki and Yamaha believed wholeheartedly on their products they don’t need to pay much for an endorsement. Am I dissing Honda? The same Honda I have a motto over it? (my motto: I may change for the better or for worse, but Honda will always be there) Um, yes. The lack of marketing effort of Honda Indonesia both motorcycle and automobile really worries me. I may uses harsher words, but suffice to say, I have this urge to know how the marketing mind behind Honda Indonesia works.

Okay, for this week, I’ve talked about experimental and hypocrisy marketing. Experimental marketing is actually something to be expected these days, especially because of a rapid change in our social culture condition. Yamaha reposition Mio from a scooter for woman to a scooter for man is not something new in the world of marketing. Marlboro for example, it was first designated as a cigarette for woman, but what do we see now about Marlboro advertisement? Well, I guess you cannot associate cowboys and the plains with the elegance and beauty of the woman kind.

Will Honda follow Yamaha footstep and change Vario’s positioning like Mio? It is very likely, Honda and Yamaha are both the number one and two motorcycle player in Indonesia, and they fiercely fight for the number one spot. Although the current market is held by Honda, in February, they lost the number one title to Yamaha. At least it should be a wake up slap for Honda to not just sit idly and expect their brand to help along.

Hypocrisy marketing is actually not called that way; it is just good old plain maintaining good media relationship. When you maintain a good media relationship, most often than not, when you have a bad product that is reviewed by the media, the media would soften the blow in their respective review. A disreputable media might say only good things about your product, even if you are selling a stale dog poo, when you have good standings with them. But not all media are bastards, some have integrities, but some you can buy it straight out of the box.

Be warned though, when you meet a bastard media, which is trying to sweet talk their way to write good things about your products… Stop. When people knows what kind of a media that was, your product and brand image might falls down with them. It’s a bit of a gamble, but if a media looses its credibility, so does the product reviewed in it. This kind of media sometimes just wanted to get you to put advertisement on their media as sign of thanks for writing a good product review.

So, have a nice weekend, and next week… Arsenal approach and COMEBACK MARKETING… When will I stop using this corny term…

BTW, perhaps I’m gonna change the visual theme of this blog next week, I’ve received emails that my blog was heavy to load with all of those Fit pictures. Perhaps I’m going to make a short article with a link somewhat…

Well, it’s not enough that I coin up the experimental marketing term, I came up with another silly one. Hypocrisy marketing… What is that? Well in this world of mass media, sometimes it is good to have a good standing with the media. So what does having a good media relationship got to do with marketing at all? Well first of all, the media is a third party, meaning that people often believe third, fourth, fifth, and so on party better than the first party… Confused? Well, so do I.

First party off course is the brand principle itself, by doing marketing effort, it is trying to portray a good image of itself and are trying to sell something to the audience. The second party is a brand ambassador, a person which the principle uses as a medium to sell more products because usually people are suckers for believing other people than the principle itself. However, even though people are suckers for this kind of things, they are not stupid either. Off course, people recognized the brand ambassador has connection with the principle and thus his/her arguments are not valid enough to push sales more. However, a third party, or usually the media, are portrayed as independent, therefore more believable than first or second party.

Case in point, which would you believe, your friend or a stranger talking on the television? Well, I’ll be damn if you believe straightaway some stranger talking on the media; just like that college professor who got swindled by a scam, and he lost US$140K because of it. People lies, and marketers are the worst kind of liars, but off course out of self defense they will say not saying the truth is not lying… But still, for me, not telling the truth = lying. So psychologically, people will resort to whomever the closest person for telling the truth, for a second opinion. But in the professional world, can we rely on just friends? Because the more source of information we use, the valid the data is (according to statistic).

The media is the best third party medium around that displays non sided news, or is it? Well, this is where hypocrisy marketing came in and blows some dirt on to the media itself. Good media relationship, is just that, to garner favorable write up from the journalist/editor which the principle chooses to befriend with. When your product is a bad, without good media relationship, your product is bad, period. But if you have a good relationship with the media, your bad product suddenly became something like… A jewel in the rough, or unpolished gem stone, or it could be better in the future, any phrase that softens the blow to the product itself.

Just like a news, when a principle does not have a good media relationship and there’s a horrible accident, most often the principle will be at blamed. For example, when Suzuki launches SX-4 in Indonesia, there are 2(two) units that tumbles upside down because of a driver error. How the hell it did not get into the news is beyond me, really… There are multiple cameras and I believe the event was filmed by a local news channel.

Does the above example indicates good media relationship? I do not know personally. But good media relationship can be seen most often on an IT/end-user products magazine. The reviewers/editors are often invited to lavish lunch/dinner/any occasion to win the favor for their particular brand. Some marketing staffs are even assigned specifically to the media to maintain good relationship, with unlimited budget to “entertain” the media staff to garner favorable reviews.

This kind of act really disgust me… If you have a good product, why would you need to even go far to have a good media relation? A good media relation is important, but in my lifetime I had saw disgusting practices done by the principles to “entertain” the media so lavishly, the media staffs always says nice words for the brand principle and say otherwise to their competitors.

I am no saint, I am a sinner, but assigning marketing effort to buy a review is just beyond me.

 Whew… Wow, I really did blow some steam away… It seems that I’m a bit upset about everything… Well, I try to make the entry more make sense sometimes this weekend if I’m cool enough.