For example-
Normal business- Your market survey shows that there is a great demand of Imported apples in cities like Pune and Mumbai and therefore your marketing team decides that we can tap the apple market here. This is the normal way of business- you follow the trend.
Disadvantage of this method- Since its a known trend, there are many competitors selling the same product. Some are really big with big budgets and they can easily overshadow your startup.
Using Creatology-
1) Open a Apple store in an extremely remote village bazaar place. Give away few dozens of apples to the poor children there. This will help in two ways-
a) Create a buzz in rural area- because people there are getting a product which was never available to them in their local area. (Usually people in remote rural areas have to travel to the city to buy certain things).
Also getting premium products for free creates buzz in the rural market.
Your business gets immediate attention from the rural folk (because you are unique and outstanding in that market) and the news spreads in the 20 -25 villages in the perimeter of 30-40 kms because Bazaar place village is the central market place for the surrounding 20- 25 villages.
Now, as your imported apples are costlier than the local fruits like jamuns, guavas etc., you will not end up becoming the best fruit seller in the bazaar, but you will be serving the niche market of wealthy villagers who are always attracted towards the lifestyle of people in the cities. Catering to customers with good amount of money is good for you.
Thus, you can become a big fish in a small pond rather than be a small fish in the large ocean full of sharks and blue (chip) whales.
b) Create a buzz in the Urban Market- The primary aim of entering the rural market, as stated above, was not actually to establish the business there, but to generate news for the Media in the cities. You can 'invite' Journalists to your rural centre's inauguration and to the Free Apple distribution day.
A small news article is always more effective than an average paid advert in a newspaper.
DIY PR with news creation through creative events and ventures like the one above will help you stay highlighted with press coverage and maintain your buzz in the urban market. Sponsoring unique and special sports and health related events will also help you in building your image as a good company. (Positive Psychological conditioning of the mass (people) happens when they get positive news or views consecutively; more effectively when these inputs are from different media/ sources and word of mouth.)
The out of the box idea here was to go to the rural market to create the buzz in the urban market and generate news (PR).
Few other creatology strategies for the apple business-
1) Extreme customer care and use of social media like Zappos- every customer becomes your brand ambassador/ salesman though word of mouth generation.
2) Creative events- Organize creative events like-
‘ The Fastest Apple Eating Contest’ ,
‘ Apple recipes Contest/ workshops’ for women,
‘ Apple a day keeps your doctor away- Health Camp'
‘ Slimming diet Workshop’ etc.
DON’T FORGET to INVITE THE PRESS to each and every event.
3) CREATIVE PACKAGING- a typical housewife will throw away normal boxes but keep a box which can be used for keeping old magazines, newspapers etc. If your box/carrybag is attractive enough it will be kept at the house and your brand name will stay there physically in the customer’s house.
Useful Packaging-
Just imagine your apples in this carry bag, instead of the bottles.
Creative apple packing examples-
Gift packaging- ‘Cadbury’ discovered that Indian families do a lot of gifting during the festivals of Diwali, Raksha Bandhan etc, so they came up with the idea of ‘ Cadbury Celebrations’ packs.
Gift packaging for your Apples-
4) Merchandise- Use of other products to highlight your brand. Examples for the apple business:
5) Apple Tourism- Organize agri tourism like tours where people can visit the apple farms and taste the fresh fruit there, as well as learn about apple farming. Again, this will help you with the brand recall and buzz creation.
To be continued………….
Santosh S. http://woosocialtv.blogspot.com
I have just tried to share few of my humble ideas here. I am sure there are lots of creative brains out there, and i urge all of you to contribute to this discussion for the mutual benefit of all. Creativity has a lot of power, Let's unleash it!
