Place your message inside a DVD Wouldn’t it be great if you could have your favorite weekly drama or movie in a portable format so that you can watch it over and over again?  

It sure will. And that was the driving force behind the explosion of CDs and DVDs. It is no secret in the west that DVD sales & rentals has hurt movie ticket sales. People just cant get enough of their favorite programs in a format that they can customize according to their convenience. As a result, when any major movie is released in
Hollywood, we get the DVD version released in no time.   We are catching up the fever here in
Bangladesh. DVDs are everywhere. They pop up in intercity buses where they show your favorite weekly dramas in DVDs during the journey. They are within your hand’s reach in any CD / DVD shop across the country. 

Any such major trend has major implications in consumer behavior. People are no longer dependent on their TV as any missed shows can be caught later through DVDs. People who were turned away from movie cinema halls because of their deplorable qualities, both in terms of movie and cinema hall, are watching Bangladeshi movies again at the convenience of their home. Senior citizens who were vocal about the golden days of BTV drama, can revisit them by collecting DVD versions of those old soap operas. The fight for the right of TV remote control has eased up a bit, as mothers can see the latest episodes of “Jassi jaisi koi nehi’ during the day, when the husband and the kids cannot interfere.  Any change in consumer behavior has major implications for marketer. To put it simply, when TV was the in thing, TV was the major media. Now that DVDs are the in thing, it presents a wonderful opportunity to be the next big media. The benefits are big.  

1. High frequency – Put your TV ad inside a DVD, and you can make sure that everytime someone watches the content, they will be exposed to the message
2. Reaching rural market – One benefit overshadows everything. Putting your ad inside a DVD containing weekly drama or cinema allows you to reach the much coveted rural audience. Cinema and dramas are big in rural areas. Considering the difficulty in reaching this particular audience with your traditionl media, such innovative measures can come as a welcome relief for marketers
3. Low cost – You are showing the same message to the same audience, but maybe only at 1/10 th of its cost

Get your message through to a “Captive” audience How can you get customers undivided attention for more than 2 minutes towards your message? 

If you can chain him to a post, hold him captive and dangle the message in front of his nose, maybe then you can. Or you can indulge in “Captive marketing”. No points in guessing why it is called captive marketing, because it is a form of strategy where you take advantage of people who are held “Captive” for a certain time. Imagine yourself inside an elevator. In that quite moment of tranquility, you really have nothing much to do except to stare forward and wait to reach your desired floor. According to shrewd marketers, this is a perfect opportunity to pitch your message. Because the recipient least expects it, has nothing better to do except stare at your message and realistically can’t bail out of the elevator. Therefore he is held “Captive” by the media and the message. Captive marketing is based on the concept that advertisers today have to catch the customers’ attention, where & when they least expect it, where & when hey can’t hit the delete or fast forward button, so that there is limited opportunity for them to turn the message off.  

In an over-communicated society this is a perfect ploy to garner some much-desired-but-never-received attention.  

For successful captive marketing, there are some pre-requisites. When to do it is one, which I have just explained. That brings us to the next point –where and how you should exploit captive marketing. A natural derivative from the name “Captive marketing” suggests that to employ this strategy we need a steady procession of customers, and a consumer most likely to be fixed in one place for long minutes with nowhere else to look. Some excellent spots where you can indulge in captive marketing are stated below. 

Elevators:  

Prosperous times bring in more elevators. Everyone rides them, provided they are up and working. As mentioned earlier, inside the elevator is the perfect place for any captive marketing initiatives. People at offices spend quite a considerable amount of time riding in elevators, usually looking at nothing but their shoes. An ad inside an elevator can be an effective communication tool to target a specific demographic.  

Public Rest Rooms: 

Sounds illogical, but to get sure shot results, can you think of a better place than rest rooms to place your print ads?Not really. That is why in western countries ads have started popping out in rest rooms more frequently than ever. However, the line between delivering the message and creating irritation must be maintained. 

Bus stands, and other places where we need to stand:  Whether you are out buying tickets for your favorite movie, or waiting for bus, standing in long queues is part and parcel of daily life. Here is another fact. People usually stand for a long time in queues, with nothing else to do but look around. While they are at it, they might as well look at some colorful, eye-catching ads. 

Using Existing Media Differently Are we using our existing media effectively?  

While the answer might differ, it is beyond doubt that there is room for changes. Even better, some innovative changes. Therefore parallel to using some innovative, never before used media (as discussed before), it is high time to channel our efforts to see how we can use our traditional media in a not-so-traditional way.  In a city that is growing upwards, billboards are everywhere. While there is nothing wrong with such high number of billboards in a growing economy, what is disturbing is the sheer similarity in the billboards. They all want attention. They are all square. And they all look same. 

None said billboards cannot have different shapes – round, jagged, split. Such innovation in shapes will not only draw attention, but also deliver the core message. A few years back Nestle
Bangladesh was involved in such a campaign with their KitKat brand. At that time KitKat’s slogan was “Have a Break…Have a KitKat”. To drive this message, KitKat used a swing which was attached with the billboard. The message was simple. People associate swing with leisure time. Therefore by using a simple swing, the association between “Break” and “KitKat” was shown in a very simple yet innovative way. Such innovation should be endorsed more often. Living in the Internet age, it is hard to escape its influence as a media. Internet usage in
Bangladesh is very low to consider it as a major media. That’s a fact. But where we failed to read between the facts is that it will grow massive later, if not sooner. And there arew signs everywhere. Chatting is big in our country. But we have yet to see any brands make effective use of this growing trend. BDJOBS.com probably has more audience than a popular drama in prime time. But cost per exposure in this website is next to nothing compared to that of mass media.  

Such examples are handful. But there are signs that Internet in this country is ready to spread hands and take off.  Internet usage is low and growing. For everyone else, that means Internet is not a major player in the media spectrum. For intelligent marketers, that means to get ready to exploit this monolith as it wakes up and takes shape.  Music videos and infomercials are powerful vehicles that can be used in electronic medium. They can be worthy replacements of the monotonous 30 second TV ads. After the airing of the first music video in MTV in 1981, it forever changed the landscape of entertainment. In
Bangladesh, Nescafe created some all important hype around its brand by launching one of its campaigns with a Music Video. And who can possibly forget the unforgettable SMC Oral Salines infomercials using Sadek Ali & other characters from popular drama “Ey Shob Din Ratry”. The whole nation went “Ghuta Ghuta” with the famous catch-phrase that Sadek Ali used in the infomercials.  

Pay attention or pay your dues The media landscape is in dire need of such creative sparks. 

Expansion of media and division of consumer attention was part of our textbook. We read about it and forever considered it as a problem that western society deals with only. We were the lucky losers. We didn’t have much to see or read. As a result it didn’t take much to get our attention. But those days are about to be condemned to the past. We believe we are standing in the intersection where the rules of the game are about to be changed. Ask yourself. We used to have 4 TV channels just a year ago. How many do we have now? We used to have a handful of dailies. How many were added to that list in 1 year? We used to have 1 magazine with the name “Anondo-Bichitra”. How many magazines start with the name “Anondo” now?  

Being innovative pays handsome dividends. Being anything else will make you pay the hard way.