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How to build a brand with zero adspend
Priya Srinivasan
Mumbai : Brand-building without advertising - and that too in the crowded, competitive dotcom world? It might seem the hard way - but that is exactly the route entertainment/promotions site, Hungama.com, has taken. With a fair measure of success. Or at least that is what the Atlanta-based Goizueta Business School believes, as it has included Hungama.com in its itinerary for a student and faculty visit to India last week, as a case study for `building Internet brands'. The Hungama.com model boasts of a zero advertising spend, and a mandate of establishing the brand in such a way that corporate clients would be attracted to the site and use it as a platform to reach out to their own customers. The site has been ranked as the fifth most used site in a recent ORG Marg survey. Interestingly the top four include names like Rediff.com, 123India.com, Yahoo.com and Sify.com - all horizontal sites with substantial advertising budgets. Hungama.com, which is an entertainment based vertical site has about 700,000registered users, over 250 clients and has turned cash positive according to founder Neeraj Roy, though he was not willing to disclose financials. The site has also closed a round of funding with ICICI Ventures who has invested an undisclosed sum in the company. Following the CEO's presentation to the students and an interview with Mr Neeraj Roy, eFE comes away with tips on `building a brand at zero advertising cost': Choosing the right brand name: "We went through at least 300 names and zeroed in on Hungama early on because we thought it had universal appeal and we believed then as we do now that the Net is a mass phenomenon and the brand name would have to have appeal across segments of people" says Mr Roy. Interestingly, when Hungama went live in April '99, there were barely a million people online and most brand names were chosen with the intention of appealing to English speaking, affluent class which was already on the Net. Where Hungama made a bold choice was in choosing a name with universal appeal and equally important, a name which could be extended to any entertainment/promotional activity. This was particularly critical since the company was still in the process of identifying its various lines of business. Sensitive to the `what's in it for me' element: "Most successful sites then and today are ones which offer services - e-mail, chat and the like. We were different because we offered none of these but retained the `What's in it for me' element through interactive promotions and rewards," explains Mr Roy. Rewards for winning promotional games/contests thus became the essence of the draw at Hungama.com. Zero-advertising spend: "Hoarding costs were ridiculously high and the cost of acquisition just wasn't making sense, so we decided to target users who were already online through word-of-mouth and those who weren't yet online with creative promotions called the Hungama-Experience," says Mr Roy. The company made a very conscious decision to steer clear of advertising. It also defined it's target user base clearly: Net users who were already online (who numbered about a million at the time) and the potential user base which was about 20 times this number. Hungama.com then began to gun for the next slab of potential users - essentially, these were people who were just getting online and were in the process of settling down to a usage pattern. "It takes about 3-4 months for the user to settle into a pattern and we decided to aggressively push the word of mouth route and the Hungama-Experience route with this category," says Mr Roy. The Hungama Experience: The company devised a series of creative promotions which it began to standardize across cities. For instance, the Hungama Lucky Seat was one such promotion where people killing time at theatres before the movie were given a bunch of questions which they had to submit with their seat numbers and the Hungama Lucky Seat would be declared during intermission with an announcement of the prize which would be given in association with the Hungama clients. Another promotion was to tie-up with pubs across the country and brand mocktails and cocktails - The Hungama Virus and The Hungama Cooler. Pertinently, these drinks would use ingredients promoted by Hungama clients like Coke, Bacardi, or Smirnoff. The company also organises `I Do Hungama' parties in association with several clients. These offline creative promotions and branding exercises were designed to give the potential user a taste of Hungama thereby creating brand awareness amongst potential Hungama.com visitors. Attracting corporate clients: As Hungama began to generate a dynamic brand, clients began to realize the rub off it had on their own brands. "We are a youthful brand and clients began to realize that they could incorporate youth into their brand image by associating with us" recounts Mr Roy. In the first six months Hungama had on board clients like HLL, Sony Music, Taj Group, Provogue and Raj Travels. Most importantly, the company began to design events so that the event would have the maximum rub off for as many of its member brands as possible. For instance the `Eveready to Hungama' event for the battery-maker invited college kids to walk up to the nearest Hungama van with a Walkman powered by Eveready and "walk away with gifts from Coke, Pantaloons, Coscorn, Holiday Inn" and a number of other retailers. Emergence of the company as a premier online medium for advertisers: With its carefully crafted brand image, Hungama.com has emerged as a medium with substantial online reach for advertisers. The company has also closed the advertising and brand building loop for its customers by generating several online interactive promotional campaigns for advertisers like Coke, Levis and Bacardi. The promotions are basically aimed at generating `brand involvement' using the interactive nature of the Internet. Hiring the right people: The company currently employs about 50 people across eight cities. To handle marketing for clients Mr Roy took on professionals with a marketing and advertising background since it called for a lot of concept selling. At the other end of the spectrum, to garner a user base and handle brand building offline, the company hired fresh college graduates to go across to customer points and activate the campaigns and promotions, thereby striking a balance between experience and enthusiasm.Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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