My background in product marketing makes me ambivalent as I write this post. On one hand, I have always felt that one problem many Indian web startups face is the over emphasis on the technical aspects of their product and lesser sensitivity to understanding actual usage behavior and how to cultivate the product, its positioning, its pricing, its promotions etc. (this is to be expected, as most of the startup creators are typically techies, and given their training and orientation, they are less sensitive to product management issues). But when I read about the ibibo Blogger Hunt Contest and the way it is progressing, one can’t but wonder how could MIH, a mid-sized, fast growing internet company of international parentage, (and which undoubtedly must be having its own team of thoroughbred product managers), launch a marketing promotion, as ill conceived as this.
Without getting into the specifics, let me point towards a bunch of blog posts, that should give you a good idea of what’s cooking. Rashmi Bansal, who writes the immensely popular blog Youthcurry, says in her blog post (Rs 1.5 crores for this crap?) – “..you can’t stimulate blogging by paying out huge sums to people who don’t care about blogging in the first place…â€. ContentSutra’s earlier post (MIH offers Rs1.50 crores to bloggers..why?) questions the company’s motivations in running this contest. Rajiv in his blog post (Junk blog leads Indian blogging contest!) chronicles the farcical way, the contest is unfolding. To me, the contest is reminiscent of the controversial startup Payperpost, that pays bloggers to write about advertisers products (Payperpost comes up for discussion frequently on TechCrunch).
I am all the more surprised, because this contest comes against the backdrop of the podcast interview, I had recorded with the CEO of MIH for Podtech’s India channel, a few weeks back. He had shared his perspective of the Indian web space and MIH’s plans for India, which had seemed quite remarkable.
There is nothing wrong in running promotions for popularizing your product. And there is also nothing wrong in incentivising your top performers. Every company does that (we are ourselves contemplating a promo for our product). But this contest’s underlying mechanism, its duration, its quantum, cash incentives etc raises inherent questions about the very spirit behind it. The quantum of the incentive is eye popping (inspite of being spread out over an year). Every marketing promotion will have some kind of manipulation (or pilferage). In fact, it is common for seasoned product managers to actually write off a small part of the promotion expenses (3- 5%), in anticipation of malpractices. But the rules of the ibibo Blogger Hunt Contest are so obviously flawed and open to manipulation, that one can’t but question the wisdom of its creators.
That apart, what bothers me MOST about this contest, has little to do with the contest itself. It relates to the erosion in the long term equity of ibibo, which appears to be MIH’s flagship brand. One of the lessons you learn within the first few months of a product manger’s stint is that, for marketing promotions, cash incentives (while being effective) don’t add anything to the brand’s long term equity. In fact, they decidedly lower the perception of the brand in the consumers’ mind. That’s why cash incentives are usually reserved for the intermediaries (i.e. agents, dealers) and seldom used for end consumers (this factor may vary with the product type, but pretty much applies to online web products). Surely the marketing team running this promo, is aware of this reality. Their decision to launch this promo, thus flies in the face of conventional marketing wisdom, besides displaying a complete lack of imagination on their part.
I think MIH is a company that we are going to hear a lot about in the coming years. Their move to acquire Bixee & Pixrat earlier, seemed a very prudent step for them. But while this promotion might win them some brownie points in the short run, it is likely to devalue their brand equity amongst the Indian Web community at large. I hope this is the first and the last such endeavor from their side.
Observations:
1. Piecing together the evidence suggests this isn’t a promotion. As a product manager, you probably know nobody runs a promotion for a year for then it ceases to be one and becomes a way of life. I suspect ibibo is trying to achieve just that.
2. The idea, therefore, is to pay people for creating content on ibibo. I for one think that’s a remarkable idea. A media company pays its journalists, ibibo is paying junta to create content.
3. There is entirely too much being made of what is a good blog and what isn’t. Unlike the writer of this blog (and Rashmi Bansal and suchlike people who thrive in the so-called blogosphere, an abhorrent term that smacks of closed minds where dissenters are sniffed at) I do not clay claim to knowing the absolute truth. So I can only guess – but my guess is that ibibo is building huge quantities of content very rapidly.
4. See the community that’s growing on ibibo. I would say this community is extremely valuable. Why is it that no one sniffs at orkut for the quality of its content? Because building content is not its primary objective, right? Have you any of ever considered that ibibo may be very cleverly building a community without going head-on against the orkuts in a saturated social networking arena?
5. The “Indian Web community at large” is precisely whom the writer of this blog is out of touch with. This community does not write fluent English, does not occupy ivory towers, and feels out of place in an overtly intellectual atmosphere. This community watches Hindi movies, has no pretensions about its creative abilities, and seeks value where it can find it.
Excuse the virulence, no offence intended.
Really nice post Amit! Goes to show a lot of thought has gone into it.
It appears to me that when people have money oin the bank but are hit by bankrupcy of ideas, then they let the money do the ‘creation’ of ideas. Thats what is happening here.
People like your ealrier commenters will put it in sophisticated terms ‘pay people for creating content’ .
enjoy this circus of the web!
Dear Indian Blogger,
I agree 100% with what you say. And I am sure Amit will also agree with the gist of your post.
But when content is being created, there should be accent on quality – not quantity. And by this quality – I dont mean posts in English about Karl Popper.
But when MIH is promoting people to post 20 times per day – mostly stuff gathered from other places – I dont call that content. I would have been better to pay 1 lakh and create a spider which would gather content.
Content – is not valuable on its own. What makes it valuable is the amount of people who want to access the content. This is what lead to YouTubes success.
And orkut does have content for people who want to use it in a proper way. Also orkuts community is build on staying in touch with friends. While the community MIH is trying to build is a race to 1.5 crores.
Amit,
Good post. MIH is facing some problems in creative thinking. I guess. Hope they see the light. Or at least add some basis of quality to their promotion.
What do you have to say about byindia? 🙂
Quality = what? Who decides? Why are you guys so eager to write off this experiment? Maybe ibibo will fall flat on its face – but maybe it won’t. Maybe it will create something brand new. And if the community is built quickly by putting a carrot of 1.5 crore, it’s a great accelerator. I have visited those ibibo blogs and seen the amount of bonding between participants. It beats the cosy cabals of self-designated intellectuals that a few bloggers wallow in any day. Get real, guys, and pay attention to the power of the crowds. Stand aside if you can’t be part of it, but don’t knock it until it’s proven to be a failure. Prediction is a dangerous game.
Dear Indian Blogger, I am intrigued by your deliciously contrarian views. I would like to read your blog – could you please post the link?
@Amit – great post..Although I dont agree on a cpl of points that you make
I got my take here:
http://www.startupdunia.com/2007/02/19/15-crores-incentive-by-ibibocom/
@Indian Blogger,
where dissenters are sniffed at
you make some very valid points. But a suggestion – dissenting is not bad – I think its good to have differing perspectives..often it helps to realize that your own perspective is wrong..However, if you are going to dissent, do not do it anonymously. That to me is being a coward. Provide your identity and have a healthy discussion – unless you are affliated with MIH is some way. An identity would add weight to your comments.
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The whole debate seems interesting…and definitely forces me to keep track of ibibo…..
I agree on some points with Amit, but punch of crowd is very powerful..you never know, an average idea or concept can be a big hot too….
I would better wait and watch before commenting more on it…..
@ startupdunia – disclosing my identitiy will rob the debate of its intrinsic value and push the argument in an entirley different direction, hence the reticence.
@ indian blog reader – that’s why i can’t share my blog url on this forum 🙂
Indian Blogger,
I do agree with you that the value of community and content are debatable. It is worth a lot in the hands of people who know how to monetise it. But then again, its debatable. 🙂
Anyways, its an interesting experiment.
I was just curious to know what everyone here things about ByIndia’s 5 mio USD promotional efforts.
I anticipated this way back when ibibo was being launched..!!
“money can take you to some point – but you need a lot more substance to be successful. Case in point – Four game shows started after the success of KBC and joined the deadpool within few weeks. And the reason? They lacked the basic substance”
And by the way, you guys might be interested in reading the reality check of ByIndia’s $5mn offer..
Hi to all,
I feel that this discussion about the contest is going off in a tangential direction to what I was trying to suggest.
While I did refer to Rashmi Bansal’s post which talked about the quality of the content in the contest, I dont think thats the real problem. It is a problem, to the extent that people can manipulate the rules and copy+paste stuff from elsewhere. User generated content applications are bound to have flashes of brilliance in mountains of irrelevant stuff. Thats the way it works.
If you notice, I did not mention content and its quality in my post anywhere apart from that.
The bigger problem is related to loss in the product’s equity. No doubt the site will get some traction as a result of this but the brand’s equity will suffer. So the question is whether the tactical gains overrides the strategic equity loss. I feel for a web2.0 kinda product, the strategic losses are greater than the tactical gains. And that is exactly the point that I am trying to make in my post. The marketing folks should have been able to come up with more innovative ideas about promoting the product, rather than take a shortcut, by appealing to the monetary instincts of users.
Indian Blogger- I would have loved to respond to your obviously flawed counter arguments (and also your insinuations), but I won’t, because its pointless to argue with anonymous entities. Wish you had the guts to reveal your identity; that would have added credence to what you are saying.
Rajesh/Ashish – I haven’t checked out byIndia but it seems like they are US based (the prize offered is in USD); that factor by itself robs them of much of the appeal.
Amit
Amit
If you look at any successful web2.0/community product, one of the most significant thing that they did was to drive the community in some direction [Digg/Flickr…].
I agree with you to a certain extent. but not completely. You dont even need to market the product [Google/YouTube/Flickr..] in a big way, if you are able to successfully deliver Value.
ibibo’s failure is more to do with their zero-attempt to drive the community. Yes, it affects their brand image. and the product/brand equity too.
THey have a grand idea, but maybe implementation wasnt perfect. Hopefully they will learn and retry other stuff too..
Ashish
http://www.pluggd.in
Indian Blogger,
What I understand from your comments is that- you want people to give this experiment a chance. If that be so, then your point is taken.
However, I am unable to understand why you are trying to color this whole debate as, “Intellectual bloggers in their ivory towers Vs the uninitiated community (read aam juntaâ€.
It is common sense that this ibibo contest is not a messiah for the common man ‘deprived’ of blogging. It is purely playing up on the basic premise of money as a motivator. It is not building a community; its trying to buy it.
Its all about money honey. Then why this holier than thou attitude?
1. See what I mean about “intellectual bloggers in their ivory towers” ? The author of this post accuses me of cowardice because I won’t reveal my name. How about proving that my counter arguments are “obviously flawed” instead of taking refuge behind the pre-Internet stand of refusing to argue with anonymous people? You don’t think I’m a bot that has passed the Turing test, do you?
2. OK, so content isn’t the issue – now it’s brand equity. Again, what the blogger here can do is only predict, he cannot claim to state with any authority that ibibo will dilute its brand equity through this method of ramping up usage. I don’t think ibibo is trying to create another blogger or flickr (mind you, that’s my opinion only) which are for the initiated. So maybe it will build equity among newbies. Maybe it won’t – either way, why not wait and see? To repeat a point, pay-outs that a last over 10 months do not amount to a contest or a promotion – it is a paucity of imagination to treat this project that way. There’s more than one way to skin a cat – maybe ibibo doesn’t want to wait two or three years before a community is built through natural traction: maybe it wants to kick-start the process.
3. Yes, it IS about money, honey – I don’t think ibibo is making any secret of that. But what’s wrong with that? Why is it so wrong / immoral / temporary to offer people money for their time? And as for deriding KBC 4, Ashish, go create a KBC first before you start writing off version 4 so disdainfully with your talk of “substance”. In a country where soaps are still the biggest thing going on TV, your notion of substance seems to be at a far remove from that of your countrymen. Or maybe you will now invoke Derrida to explain how soaps are substantial while KBC 4 with Shah Rukh is fluff.
4. I didn’t respond here to defend ibibo – only to take issue with the confidence with which some people write off new experiments and ideas without even giving them a chance. Several new so called “Web 2.0” products have been launched in India recently – only ibibo has sprung into the consciousness of the public and of traditional bloggers. So I would say, in marketing terms, it has achieved exactly what it set out to do.
5. Enough said. Let the debate continue, but I’m done.
its a crap site just trying to show a grt alexa rank and get a quick buck through aquestions..y bribe bloggers.we should understand that blogging is about passion and not a treasure hunt.the day they announced the promo i stopped visiting that crappy web site.
hey by the way do they have a goal.(apart from trying to become aquasition target.)
y dont these stupid websites like ibibo and byindia understand that socialnetworking is about community and not about corporates. now we know that byindia and ibibo community is full of greedy people who are looking for easy money.
Nice post amit, and superdude good comment, this is what I think holds India back, they look at a good idea, think money and then just try to do it, they dont step back to look at all successful startups of the past, most if not all of them, had little marketing/sales push the userbase drove it themselves.
In india I realise its a little different since the viral community/channel does not really exist or is not as strong, BUT its growing, and slowly but surely I think the new startups or even the older ones will realise unless there is value…you may as well forget it.
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