I have been watching this video and am still deeply moved. It is one of the most watch-able commercials I have ever seen in life. Some of the acting may be too far fetched. But its message is profound.
Question – Why am I different from others?
Answer – Do you have to be like others?
Don’t seek to be like others! Everyone of us is unique and has our own destiny to realize in life!
From marketing point of view, the commercial is also great. Pantene shampoo is a functional product and has its conventional market of shampoo users. But now it seeks to cross over from functionality to emotional appeal. Instead of using logic to tell us why it is a better brand, it seeks to attack our emotion and win our heart over.
Not only will it persuade more people from the its traditional market to use the product, those who don’t use their kind of shampoo maybe bought over too. Who knows I might decide to buy Pantene for my family next time? Perhaps this is one of the blue ocean strategies to conquer a new market.
And the tagline is inspirational – You can shine!
By the way, I consider the Thai language very beautiful phonetically. It is a language I wish to learn if I had extra time.
A business partner asked how to sell hosting to customers when there are other hosting providers who can offer super large hosting space at dirt cheap rate. For example, 100GB at RM180 only!
While I’m facing the same problems competing in such fragmented hosting industry, these are a few pointers we managed to come up with.
Firstly, don’t try to fight them with even larger space at even lower price. How about going to the other extreme, by selling small but enough hosting space at half or quarter of their prices? For example, selling only 100MB at just RM80? But the customers need to be educated that they actually won’t make use of so much space.
Secondly, expose the tricks (even deception) used by hosting providers. Nowadays anyone can sell any large amount of hosting space at cheap rates using the “overselling” kind of business model. This works because statistically an average customer will not use even 10% of the space promised to them. Some customers are “space-greedy”. They need to know the inconvenient truth in the hosting industry.
Thirdly, bundle hosting service with other services with prices you have more control on, such as web design. This way, customers may not know even if you charge them double the hosting prices.
Fourthly, but a very bad strategy – fight the competitors with even larger space at cheaper price! We know some customers will be lured into this but actually never use so much space anyway. Nevertheless, I’m against this as it is over-promising.
Last but not least, seek out blue ocean strategies that you no longer need to compete with other hosting providers in such a red ocean. But seek out new markets and sell to them some services which include hosting service.
Just as an example, how about an online service for couples getting married? Many couples get married every week. More and more couples start to want a wedding web site to commemorate such big event! In providing such service, you no longer compete with other hosting providers but customers will have unknowingly bought your hosting service anway.
Some time ago, I was asked to take over and transform an online dating and matching service. Its web site was still typical Web 1.0 style which was almost dead with very few members and traffic.
Trying to keep to my principle not to do what others were already doing, I proposed a new strategy to the owner. However, I didn’t proceed in the venture as we couldn’t agree on the right business model. At the end of discussion, the owner still preferred a business model 90% identical with the existing one!
Nowadays, many youngsters look for friendship and relationship on social network web sites, But besides casual relationships, there are others who look for serious life partner. So there are many offline dating and matching services around. Naturally, some of them get online and here come these online dating and matching web sites.
The problem is that, do people trust the Internet to look for their future husband or wife? Most do not. They don’t think Internet as a safe place. Instead, they consider it full of cheaters. The trust for the channel is just not there. We may disagree, but this is the market perception, at least for my (older) generation.
Internet presence might work for an offline matching service using the Internet to promote their service, automate some business processes and value-add to their offline offerings. But how about a purely online matching service? Will it work?
If you were to operate such an online matching service, how do you make it big on the Internet? Difficult, if not impossible. This calls even more badly for a blue ocean strategy. Let’s not be so bounded and bondaged by the same old thought just as other competitors in the industry.
