Maintaining the envy

The latest issue of Outlook Business has an article titled "Resurrecting the Devil". This article talks about Onida and the position taken regarding the usage of devil and the tag line "owners pride, neighbours envy".

In course of the article, during the discussion on the decision by Onida to discontinue the devil, advertising consultant Gopi Kukde has been quoted as the devil being an idea and as such cannot get old.

The stance of Mr. Mirchandani is that with television being a commodity today, owning one is no longer an envy evoking event. Hence, the devil and the "envy" is not relevant today.

The way I see it, the discussion is not about the devil character or tv being a commodity. It is about ownership of an idea in the consumer mindspace.

Obama owns the word "change". Similary, Onida owns the word "pride" and more so the word "envy". Even today, more than a decade of the first envy advertising launch, a majority of todays buyers (30 to 45 year olds) would remember "owners pride, neighbours envy" and immediately associate it with Onida. This association is an envy of other electronics companies. How many of them can claim such a recall and association?

I find it disappointing that Onida is letting this association go to waste. If I believe Mr. Mirchandani, and I do so, television is a commodity. Fair enough. So ownership is not a cause for envy.

I would suggest that the Onida guys then seek out what would cause the envy in today's world. Somewhere in the article, there is a passing mention of Onida losing out on service. In today's world, where every house has a television set, some even more than one, the numbers game have set in big time. Each TV brand has lakhs of customers. Each customer is just a "customer id" to the TV brand.

In this scenario, if a company can treat customers on a more personalized level. That would sure cause envy.

Lets take Onida. I think a lot of customers would still have a functioning Onida TV. If Onida can trace these customers out and create a process of felicitating them and maybe even replace the TV sets with a LCD or LED TV. Keep communicating with them so that the neighbourhood is aware. That would create envy. And Onida can still claim ownership to the "envy" word.

How much would it cost? A TV ad costs around 3 to 5 crores. The mileage and ownership of envy word is worth not doing one such ad and still it would not cost 3 crores to create a "carnival" to replace the Onida TV sets.

I get a call from the airlines....

Remember my post on the letter to chairman of Kingfisher Airlines relating the incident when everyone was in the aircraft and the pilot was late. See post here.

I got a call few days back from the airlines related to this mail. The lady on the phone apologized for the same. I asked what action has been taken. She said the roster committee has taken serious cognizance of the fact and the captain has been warned.

Now did that satisfy me? I dont care. I was happy that the airlines called me and apologized. And to reply to some of my friends... No they did not offer a free ticket. Neither was I hoping or aiming for one. I had been submitting my feedback forms regularly when I travel the same airline. But never was my feedback acknowledged or replied to. So just receiving a call was enough faith in the customer relationship program of the airlines.

I wish they show equal importance to the feedback forms passengers fill out. It will show that atleast they read the forms. Today, I have no idea if any of my forms have been even opened by them.

I had an excellent tip for them (well.. since its my creation, i think it is excellent). Kingfisher sells the t-shirts with the company logo. If they provide an incentive to passengers wearing the Kingfisher t-shirt to board first, it will form a good incentive for passengers to flaunt their Kingfisher t-shirts. It also gives the airlines a good mileage to have a few tens (if not hundreds) of passengers travelling door-airport-door wearing the airlines red colours.

Do you guys have any such ideas on how they or any airlines can provide a inclusive experience on customer relationship? If yes, comment here or mail me at michaeldsilva@gmail.com

Factory approach to Analytics

I try to be an active contributor to the blog on my company website. Hence, my future posts are segregated as those that derive through my association with Customer Centria and the ones that derive from personal experiences and interactions. The former category will be posted on the company website. I will post the link here. Only the posts related to the later category will be posted here.

Today's post relates to KXEN User Conference and is available for reading at my company website:

Factory v/s Craftsman Approach to Analytics: Notes from KXEN EMEA User Conference 2010

Await your views / feedback on the same.