AIU – Formerly known as AIG

That’s correct. The much maligned AIG brand is now in the process of rebranding itself to make over its bad image. AIG has become hopelessly tarnished after a government bailout and controversy over bonuses issued to executives in the financial-products group which busted its balance sheet.

Its TV ad shows a boy walking into his parents' bedroom in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. It's not because of bad dreams that are keeping him awake.

"I'm worried about this family's financial future," he announces. Don't worry, his dad assures him: "We're with AIG."

The problems for American International Group Inc. these days are many of its current and potential customers are worried about its future.

Conventional wisdom says that AIG brand is tarnished beyond all recognition and it has to be rebranded. But how much is this name change going to cost? Rebranding is a huge business in USA and particularly for the damaged corporations like AIG which has to reinvent itself and gain the confidence of its customers.

Does the name alone would be enough to make over its image problem? I think no. They should change their marketing and use powerful metaphors to gain back the reputation instead of just rebranding.

Pepsi goes Fizzy in India

The global cola brand Pepsi has put in its thoughts to fine-tune its global strategies in the Indian market. In an attempt to make the macho appeal of Thumbs-up, PepsiCo India has tweaked the taste of its drink in Andhra Pradesh to match the fizzy taste of Thumbs-up.

This will help Pepsi to grab the market share of the people who opt for fizzier taste in AP. (But what about the people who have already addicted to the less fizzy Pepsi?) The brand is under pressure from its US headquarters to break the Thumbs-up’s market share.

But am not sure if the tweaked taste would be welcomed in other parts of India. As the people of AP prefer more hot and spicy food, it may work out for Pepsi in that region. (I believe that’s the reason why Thumbs-up has 80 plus % market share in AP)

At last Pepsi realized that its Global standards may not work in all the markets and brands have to regionalize their offerings to suit the local tastes just like Mc Donald’s Indianised offerings.

Hallmark in France (Case Study)

Hallmark greeting cards have proven immensely popular in both the UK and the United States. Catering for every special occasion – from birthdays to weddings and from Mother’s Day to passing your driving test – the cards are sent by thousands of people every single day of the year.

The signature (or ‘hallmark’) of Hallmark cards is the ‘special message’. The advantage of buying from Hallmark is that you don’t have to think about what to write – it is usually all written for you. ‘Thank you for being such a special daughter.’ ‘These birthday wishes are especially for you,’ and so on, normally followed by a rather sentimental poem inside.

While this formula may be successful in many countries, it has not proved universal. For instance, when Hallmark tried to introduce their cards in France, no-one bought them as people preferred to write in the cards themselves. Furthermore, the syrupy sentiment inherent within the preprinted messages did not appeal to the Gallic taste. After a few months Hallmark admitted defeat and withdrew its brand.


Lesson from Hallmark
Brands need to acknowledge cultural differences. Very few brands have been able to be transferred into different cultures without changes to their formula. Even Coca-Cola and McDonald’s vary their products for different markets.

The fight for traffic!!

What would it take for marketers to move from search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization to social media?

Facebook has become a bigger source of traffic for some large websites than Google. While the social network gets a little more than a third of Google’s unique visitors in the U.S, since the summer, registered users have grown at a double-digit rate. It has also become a source of referrals for video sites as users post and share clips.

According to research, Facebook will surpass Google by 2011-2012 because the unique visitors to Facebook are growing enormously. Facebook has become a traffic source for Google as 19% of Google sessions now come from Facebook, up from 9% a year ago. At the very least, Facebook can negotiate a referral deal at some point.

But for Microsoft (which pays Facebook), it must be annoying to watch the company send all that traffic to Google.

Remember, search and social are two different things altogether. They may have some big overlap but they serve different purposes. We don’t expect Google to tell what our close friends are doing right now, and we don’t expect Facebook to tell the exchange rate of a dollar or pound.

What’s your opinion? Even if Facebook sustains its growth, can it “kill” Google?