Short interesting paper ....

1. OVERALL Trends & Ideas for Marketing to Customers in a Large Format Electronics
Retail Context…..
Pls note that these are not any Brand / Retail / Company Specific programs but a
pragmatic paper based on my 20 years Retail / FMCG / Electronics / Telecom
experience … Also largely derived from my Leading the Marketing for RELIANCE
RETAIL as the Chief of Marketing , in the last 4 / 5 years …
Effective Marketing would draw customers into our stores and convert the customer’s
conviction into action. As a marketer or as a retailer, one would like to see consumption
of goods from his basket and well designed marketing programs would drive this.
In the context of Electronics or
rather CDIT ( Consumer
Durables , IT , Telecom) a
‘brand’ / “ vendor” / “ company”
will market its products through
attractive incentives / offers by
highlighting the superiority of its
features , technology , Pricing
etc . The brand in this case is
fighting for a share from its
competition or growing the
market / category.
In case of a retailer, more
appropriately for a Electronics /
CDIT retailer who in his
assortment has practically all of
the electronic & electrical
Brands / Lines that a consumer
would need at home, the
concept of consumer promotion
changes quite a bit. There are 2
fold objectives – one that the Customer / shopper should shop at his retail outlet for the
product and 2, the shopper should think TOM of this retail outlet whenever he needs to
buy and electronic / CDIT gadget.
Now let me share with you , our learnings from Reliance Digital format …
At Reliance Digital, we recognized this at a fairly early stage. We realized that people
shop at our store not just for products but solutions. Take the example of a customer
who has shopped somewhere for an LCD TV of one brand. He will have a technician
from the brand visiting his place to install the TV – it is fine so far. Now, the customer
needs a solution – he has a DVD player of some other brand and wants to have it
hooked on and synchronized with this new TV; the response from the technician will

2. more often be negative. At Reliance we set up a team of specialists called Reliance ResQ
engineers. They would not just install the TV of any brand but also help in this
interconnectivity and hence provide complete solution.
Visit our large format stores and you will find the walls full of visual merchandise – a
silent promotion but suggesting inputs to the shopper so that he can make appropriate
choice of product/s. ( In fact making the choice , decision easy for the shopper /
customer )
Having said this, let me now share with you another very successful promotion
campaign that we run year after year as a part of our Anniversary celebrations.
Shoppers not only get freebies but win exciting prizes on contests. The finalist drive
away with a Honda Civic car , viz in 2009 Anniversary !. This is to create the EXCITEMNET
/ HYPE / ASPIRATIONAL VALUE , and drive the shoppers to our stores …
Our focus is on solution and experience rather than offering discounts.
We encourage shoppers to shop for more by giving them an offer that is commensurate
with their spending. This is called ‘Bill value promotion’. Shop for more and walk away
with a more expensive gift. This kind of promotion also benefits a shopper and
encourages him to buy products from across categories – he could be buying a home
theatre system and a lap top and getting the gift.
One another interesting aspect of our promotions is that they are backed by very lively
consumer engagement programmes
and events at our stores. During the
Diwali season of 2008, we ran a
promotion christened ‘You are the
king’ – riding on the popularity of the
movie ‘Singh is King’. Every day during
the campaign period, we distributed
prizes to the content winners and they
were called Saath baje ka Sikandar –
the event would generate very good
footfalls and motivate shoppers to buy
before the strike of 7 PM and get
them to participate in the day’s
contest. The prizes that we gave away
included LCD TVs, Mobile phones,
Digital Cameras, Microwave ovens etc.

3. How does all this sum up and what are our learnings?
Firstly, as a Electronics / Technology retailer when you have differentiated offers for
which there is a perceived value, that by itself is a strong promoter.
Next, promotions and marketing campaigns should not be just product centric (as such
brands invariably have their offers on products) and should be more store centric.
Next, customer engagement programs or events actually help in enhancing the average
bill value & conversion an overall experience .