At Goafest 2013, a conclave of advertising and marketing professionals held in Goa recently, the one big topic of conversation was scam ads — advertisements or campaigns created by agencies for the sole purpose of winning awards.

The ads are typically released in an obscure publication or television channel; sometimes, the product itself may not actually exist. At Goa, a poster campaign for the Ford Figo was hurriedly withdrawn by JWT India, a part of the world’s largest marketing communications group WPP, amid complaints that the ad, which depicted three women bound and gagged sitting in the trunk of a hatchback, was offensive.

Although the ad was submitted for Goafest with a letter of approval from the client, it is unclear whether Ford was aware of its content, Advertising Age reported. As the controversy grew, other agencies withdrew prize-winning ads amid charges that they were not legitimately released. “Advertising has never been less trusted than now,” Nitin Paranjpe, chairman of Hindustan Unilever, the country’s biggest advertiser, said during the Goa meeting.

On the sidelines, there was another debate going on about the ethics of surrogate advertising. For example, liquor cannot be advertised in India, so companies try to circumvent the rules by launching eponymous lines of unrelated products, such as playing cards, soda or aftershave, that are heavily advertised. Bacardi, for instance, markets branded soda and music CDs.

The rules can sometimes give rise to “products of regulation.” In the late 1980s, liquor manufacturer Jagatjit Industries, which has brands such as Binnie’s whisky and rum, launched Binnie’s potato chips. The campaign for the snacks went on to win several awards, though the company wasn’t prepared to meet the demand generated for the product.

Cigarette and tobacco advertising is also banned in India. Some companies have been pro-actively launching products to keep their key brands top of mind. ITC (formerly Indian Tobacco Company) extended its Wills cigarettes franchise to Will Lifestyle, a chain of exclusive specialty stores. Then it launched Essenza Di Wills, a line of premium personal-care products. More recently, the firm has rolled out Fiama Di Wills, another personal-care brand. In fairness to ITC, however, all these lines have been successes and are part of the company’s plans to convert from being primarily a cigarette manufacturer to a fast-moving consumer goods company.

There are other products that tobacco companies have launched in the face of regulatory changes. A few years back, the government decided to shift the basis of charging excise on cigarettes from value to length. (The rationale was that king-size cigarettes are luxury products and should be taxed more.) Several firms — ITC (Hero), GTC (Blue Bird) — subsequently launched micro-cigarette brands. When excise duties went back to being ad valorem, these products were abandoned.

Prior to the liberalization of India’s economy, “scam” products were even more prevalent because of import restrictions. Many of them came from the Sindhi business community in Ulhasnagar, a suburb of Mumbai. There was a huge demand for products carrying a “Made in U.S.A.” label, but they were available — in limited quantities, at exorbitant rates — only with the neighborhood smuggler. Items carrying a “Made by U.S.A.” label filled the breach. Even the fine print didn’t expand it to “Made by the Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association.”

Photo by Kendall Whitehouse

While Comic-Con International’s WonderCon in Anaheim, Calif., attracted an estimated 40,000 pop culture fans this past weekend, Asbury Park Comic Con on Saturday offered similar attractions on a smaller scale for East Coast fans. Kendall Whitehouse, Knowledge@Wharton’s technology and media editor, covers trends in entertainment and pop culture. He stopped by the Asbury Park, N.J., expo and filed this report. 

While still modest in size, Asbury Park Comic Con (or, as it sometimes appears, “Comicon”) has grown substantially during its three-year history. After two years in a local bowling alley with a maximum capacity of 300, this year’s event moved to the larger Asbury Park Convention Hall with panel sessions held across the street at the Wonder Bar. Robert Bruce, co-founder of the Asbury Park expo, reported selling 1,400 advance tickets with an estimated equal number of tickets sold at the door the day of the show. The conference falls somewhere between the large expos like San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, and WonderCon, and the small, largely local events like Philadelphia’s Locust Moon Comics Fest.

Bruce stated that he wanted to produce a comic book convention in the spirit of “the original Phil Seuling cons from the ’70s.” As such, the focus was on comic books rather than the broader spectrum of sci-fi and horror television and movies that occupy much of the programming at the larger conventions.

The impact of TV and movies was not entirely absent, however. A crowded panel session featured the stars of the AMC TV reality series, “Comic Book Men,” and Brian O’Halloran from the 1994 movie Clerks. The expo’s keynote speaker, Michael Uslan, is best known as the executive producer of the Batman films. Yet comic books were central to the conversation throughout the day. The AMC TV show is, after all, a program about a comic book store, and Uslan’s journey to Hollywood started with his love of comic books.

In his talk, Uslan told the tale of how a kid with “an incredible passion for superheroes, especially Batman,” became the first person to teach a college course on comic books, and later went on to write Batman stories for DC Comics, acquire the movie rights to Batman, and struggle for 10 years until he was able to bring his vision of a “dark and serious Batman” to the movie screen. It’s an inspiring tale of dedication, perseverance and a love for comic books — a story Uslan related in his autobiography (The Boy Who Loved Batman) and previously discussed with Knowledge@Wharton (see: “Movie Producer Michael Uslan on Superheroes, Comic Books and Why Hollywood Doesn’t Get It“ and “The Boy Who Loved Batman: Michael Uslan’s Journey from New Jersey to Hollywood“). Yet there was added resonance in hearing him tell the tale in Asbury Park, where the young Uslan would pick up comic books at the local drug store and later, as a teen, drive his car around “the circuit,” the loop around Ocean and Kingsley avenues — directly outside the Wonder Bar where he was giving his talk.

Other panels included conversations with Al Jaffee, Mad Magazine‘s longest-running contributor famous for creating the magazine’s back-page Fold-In feature and “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”; and artist Bob Camp, best known for his work on “The Ren & Stimpy Show.”

Vendors on the show floor included multiple generations of comic book artists and writers. In addition to the 92-year-old Jaffee, the golden age of comic books was represented by 88-year-old Allen Bellman, who drew Captain America and the Human Torch for Timely Comics (the predecessor of Marvel Comics) in the 1940s. At the other end of the spectrum, many of the vendor tables were occupied by young self-published comic book creators and small, independent publishers. Unlike the comic cons in San Diego and New York, there were no large booths from the major comic book companies like Marvel, DC, Image or IDW.

Co-founder Bruce seemed fine with this. “I like the oddball comics,” he said, adding that he believes the future of comics lies with indie productions — “guys with a Xerox” who publish and market their own creative content.

The vendors were generally pleased with the crowd and reported that sales were brisk. Rafer Roberts of Plastic Farm Press tweeted: “What a fun show @AsburyComicon was. I need to do some math, but I’m pretty sure this was one of my top sales days ever.”

Next year, Bruce hopes to further expand the Asbury Park Con and increase the number of panel sessions, which he feels are “essential for the fan to meet the artist.”

If Asbury Park Comic Con continues to grow, it may play a small role in helping to revive the area’s economy. After suffering from decades of decline — poignantly captured in songs by Bruce Springsteen – Asbury Park was struggling to gain its economic footing when super-storm Sandy dealt a devastating blow to the Jersey shore. Strolling down the boardwalk from Convention Hall, the after-effects of Sandy are still in evidence in the rows of boarded-up shops and damaged buildings. Yet there are signs of a comeback. Madam Marie’s, the fortune telling stand made famous by Springsteen’s “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” sports a new coat of paint. Graffiti on a nearby storm damaged storefront proclaims, “Yo, Sandy… We’ll be back!!!”

“Five months ago we had one of the worst storms ever, [yet] the shore survives,” Bruce said. “The shore’s open. It’s time for people to come back.”

For a photographic overview of the event, see Whitehouse’s Flickr set:
Asbury Park Comic Con 2013.

In a cricket-crazy nation like India, partnering with one of the sport’s major events assures companies of garnering plenty of publicity. And in this, PepsiCo seems to have hit a winning stroke: In November, the American food and beverage firm won the title sponsorship to the Indian Premium League (IPL) for five years starting in 2013. This year’s IPL is scheduled to start on Wednesday.

PepsiCo’s winning bid was at Rs.397 crore ($73 million) for the five-year period, making the deal the largest investment the company has made in India related to the game of cricket.

The soft drink maker is now the “exclusive pouring partner” for eight out of nine IPL teams, meaning that PepsiCo’s foods and beverages will be exclusively served at partner teams’ home matches and Pepsi will also have the title of the “official beverage” for the eight teams.

“Winning the title sponsorship [of the IPL] was just the beginning,” Gautham Mukkavilli, CEO for beverages of PepsiCo India said in a news release. “We are committed to back it with smart, strategic and high-decibel marketing and activation plans that will help us maximize the tournament’s potential.”

Company officials expect the Pepsi-IPL sponsorship to result in a multiplier of at least five to six times the initial investment. “The timing of the tournament is also ideal, given that packaged beverages is an impulse category and nearly 50% of the consumption happens in the [summer] months,” according  to Deepika Warrier, vice president for beverages marketing at PepsiCo India.

Pepsi also recently rolled out a new marketing initiative in India. The “Oh Yes Abhi” campaign features cricket and film stars promoting the joys of living in the moment and instant gratification — “Abhi” in Hindi means “right now” — and is aimed at India’s large youth population.

Meanwhile, sector leader Coca-Cola has also launched a new marketing push. Leveraging the Facebook page and Twitter handle of Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, the company launched a new campaign for its Thums Up cola brand. The same initiative has been launched in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh — the largest market for Thums Up in the country — with film star Mahesh Babu in the lead.

Coca-Cola has also launched a 400 milliliter container size across its brands. “We are strengthening our [occasion, brand, pack, price, and channel] model by adding another pack to our portfolio,” notes Anupama Ahluwalia, vice president of marketing at Coca-Cola India. “The 400 milliliter pack will offer more choice to the consumer and be especially relevant for the on-the-go consumer. Keeping with changing lifestyles, this pack will straddle between the existing 200 milliliter and 300 milliliter glass bottles and the 500 milliliter and 600 milliliter [plastic containers.]”

New Delhi-based research and consultancy firm Technopak Advisors pegs the size of the refrigerated carbonated beverages market in India at $1,287 million. “This segment is growing at 6% to 7% annually. Coca-Cola remains the market leader in this category with a market share of more than 55%, followed by Pepsi with around 40%,” says Gurbinder Kumar, associate director for food services and agriculture at Technopak.

According to a report in Indian financial daily Business Standard, “Each year the two cola majors cumulatively spend around $64 to $73 million on advertising, marketing and promotion, around 55% of which is earmarked for the summer months.”

Last year, Coca-Cola announced an additional investment of $3 billion in India through 2020 to further capture growth opportunities in the country’s fast-growing non-alcoholic beverage market, bringing the company’s total spending in the nation to $5 billion from 2012 to 2020.

The per capita consumption of soft drinks in India is among the lowest in the world at six bottles a year, compared to 80 bottles in Thailand and 800 bottles in the U.S. Delhi has the highest per capita consumption in the country with 50 bottles annually.

Technopak’s Kumar points out that a growing shift in consumer preferences toward healthier food has required both Coke and Pepsi to refocus their efforts in India. “Rising awareness about heart- and weight-related health issues, especially among teenagers and young adults, is driving the consumption of packaged fruit drinks,” Kumar says. “The increased awareness is leading consumers to upgrade from carbonated soft drinks to healthier beverages such as fruit juices.”

Coca-Cola, for example, has signed on the very first brand ambassadors for its mango drink, Maaza. Last month, the firm also rolled out a new campaign building on the “made with nature” tagline for its Minute Maid orange drink. PepsiCo, too, has launched a new push for its Slice mango drink and, in a worldwide first in the history of the firm’s Tropicana brand, the company has introduced fruit powders in India in three flavors.

India’s rural market is not new to marketers. Almost a decade ago, management expert C.K. Prahalad urged companies consider the revenue potential of bottom-of-the-pyramid customers. In 2007, McKinsey & Co. highlighted the opportunities that exist in rural India in its report, “The ‘Bird of Gold’: The Rise of India’s Consumer Market.” In the past few years, many companies have seen these predictions bear fruit, and started banking on the rural economy to provide a cushion for any slowdown experienced in urban India.

Now, a recent study by management consulting firm Accenture titled, “Profitably Selling to India’s Rural Customers: Hidden Lessons From the Masters,” suggests that more than two-thirds of companies in India are looking to rapidly expand their businesses in rural markets — more firms than any time ever in the country’s history.

The report notes that increasing income, higher aspirations and better infrastructure are resulting in a better business environment in rural India. Since 2000, GDP has grown faster in rural India than in urban areas — a 6.2% compound average growth rate (CAGR) compared with 4.7% in the cities. Between 2010 and 2012, spending in rural India was $69 billion, while $55 billion was spent by the nation’s urban population.

The report cautions, however, that simply having a presence in rural India is not adequate to attract consumers living there; companies need to acquire “deep customer and market insights” and develop “transformational strategies to master these markets.” According to the report, a typical mistake that companies tend to make is to treat rural consumers as a single homogenous market. They also tend to offer the same value proposition to rural consumers as they do to their urban counterparts.

A few months ago, at a Nielsen India conference titled, “Consumer 360 India,” held in New Delhi, speakers noted that there are several wrong notions regarding rural consumers. Prashant Singh, vice president of Nielsen India, said: “Contrary to the myth that rural Indians prefer [products packaged in] small packs and sachets, the consumers there actually prefer the large packs, [which] offer value for money.”

According to Accenture, three key enablers for reaching, acquiring and retaining rural customers are as follows: adapting organizational structure and leadership buy-in, creating a winning talent management strategy, and using technology to create advantage. Sanjay Dawar, managing director of Accenture’s business consulting practice in India, suggests that “the unprecedented speed of change in rural markets also demands unprecedented agility.”

Dawar notes that rural markets lack adequate physical and social infrastructure and therefore distribution of services across these markets is very costly and challenging. “Companies expanding in rural markets should therefore focus their geographic reach and more effectively invest in understanding the segment-specific nuances in those areas. They should then prioritize their channel partnership strategy to strengthen the capabilities and reliability needed to reach customers in the last mile.”

Those who have been most successful in these markets have gone beyond the traditional selling approaches, Dawar points out, adding that collaboration will also play a critical role. “To expand their reach while optimizing resources, companies will have to pursue non-traditional partnerships, even with competitors, and work with local organizations as channel partners to capture scale opportunities early on.”

The report further notes that “companies that have proved most successful in rural markets have helped improve rural consumers’ standard of living — by creating jobs, building social infrastructure or providing business opportunities.” It suggests that to foster these kinds of improvements, “companies need to align their long-term interests with the community’s development to gain its trust and commitment. This alignment builds synergistic relationships based on shared goals and aspirations.”

Coming close on the heels of lower-than-expected sales figures, J.C. Penney’s recently launched partnership with Canadian clothing brand Joe Fresh might be CEO Ron Johnson’s last chance to turn the ailing company around.

J.C. Penney shares jumped 5% after the debut weekend of the Joe Fresh line in about 700 of its 1,100 stores. The line uses a “store-within-a-store concept” that many observers say is key to rejuvenating the antiquated business model of large department stores. Wharton marketing professor David Bell notes that in the medium and long term, determining whether the Joe Fresh venture is a success or a failure isn’t entirely tied to earnings.

“There will need to be some boost in traffic and sales,” he says. “But the arrangement might also be considered successful if it helps to reinvigorate the J.C. Penney brand as well.”

Part of that could be tied to Joe Fresh leading by example. The new “mini-stores” for the Canadian brand reflect the style of its standalone locations: white walls, flooring and fixtures, and strong lighting that offset the brightly-colored clothing and accessories.

Creating a distinct look for Joe Fresh — which has just six U.S. locations, all in the New York City area — was key for two reasons, Bell says. “First and foremost, it is important that customers see the merchandise and that the new brand stands out. Secondly, it’s important that it look ‘different’ to J.C. Penney customers so that they start to ‘get’ the whole store-within-a-store concept,” Bell notes, adding that while he doesn’t think the strategy could backfire by making the rest of the store look dull, “it will create some pressure on store managers to make sure that the rest of the store at least looks OK.”

But the positive news about initial sales of Joe Fresh was accompanied by a report from research firm International Strategy & Investment suggesting that the best thing J.C. Penney could do to boost itself would be to cut its brand out of the equation. According to the report, J.C. Penney’s most valuable asset is the sheer amount of space it owns. Volume allows the firm to pay very low costs for the space when compared to other retailers and if it were to remove all J.C. Penney branding from about 300 of the most strategically located stores and sublet them to other retailers, the Texas-based department store company could clear $1.2 billion annually in rental income, the report states.

The idea makes a lot of sense, according to Bell, who points to the growing realization among retailers in the burgeoning e-commerce sector that it helps to have some sort of physical presence. “[Men's clothing] e-commerce retailer Bonobos has guide shops and a deal with Nordstrom, and [eyeglass company] Warby Parker has 13 showroom partnerships and will soon open flagship stores. My sense is that there are a large number of e-tailers that would love to have a physical presence.”

A start-up called Story provides an example of how such a concept could work, Bell adds. The company’s 2,000 square-foot space in New York is completely overhauled every four to eight weeks with design, merchandise and fixtures that reflect particular themes.

Call it a case of Super Bowl creep — whereas game day used to be zero hour for companies to unveil their most eye-catching, conversation-sparking new ads, many firms are jumping the gun and releasing their spots early via social media.

With more than 48 hours to go before kickoff, commercials by Budweiser, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola and others have already racked up millions of views on YouTube. Some firms are only showing pieces of their ads, with the full spots to be unveiled during the Super Bowl. Coke released a portion of an ad and is asking viewers to vote on how it will end come game day. Doritos has released videos from the finalists in its 2013 Crash the Super Bowl contest, which invites people to create their own spots, and is asking viewers to vote on the winner.

While these companies are losing the element of surprise that once surrounded Super Bowl ads — which, according to a New York Times story, cost as much as $4 million for 30 seconds of screen time this year — Wharton marketing professor David Reibstein and operations and information management professor Shawndra Hill say the practice actually allows firms to get a better return on their considerable investments.

“Everyone always oohs and aahs at the outrageous costs of a Super Bowl ad,” Reibstein says. “But when you look at it in terms of cost per exposure, the cost goes way down when you start adding in exposures that companies are getting online, where people are looking at [an ad] and creating some buzz.”

Because airtime during the Super Bowl is at such a premium, Reibstein adds, putting an ad on YouTube also gives companies the option of showing extended versions of the spots that couldn’t be shown on TV. He hasn’t had a chance to watch any of the spots yet, but expects perennial fan favorite Doritos to once again be a top vote getter. “They have really developed a whole niche for consumer-generated ads, and allowing viewers to pick the big winners is a really clever approach,” he notes. “I expect that it’s going to pay off big for them again this year.”

But as the Internet becomes more of a destination for advertisers to engage with customers, will the Super Bowl begin to lose some of its mystique? Not any time soon, Reibstein predicts. “There are always lots of ads on social media, but I think because something is a Super Bowl ad, it’s going to automatically get more attention than if it were just a regular ad.”

And people aren’t just watching the ads around the time of their airing on the Super Bowl, according to Hill, who is studying how companies can use social media to build consumer engagement. “People continue to search for and comment on these ads on YouTube well after the Super Bowl is over,” she notes. Ads that were shown during the 2011 Super Bowl got a bump during the 2012 game, and Hill expects the same effect will happen again this year.

“In the past it was really hard to go back and review an ad unless you recorded the entire Super Bowl,” she says. “But now it’s really easy to do on YouTube, and people are doing it in large numbers. When you look at the number of views that some ads got during the Super Bowl, for some brands it was in the order of hundreds of thousands. But many of them have gotten in some cases two times the amount of views since last year’s Super Bowl. I think that is fascinating, especially when we are talking about orders of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Hill, who plans to collect data in real time during this year’s game, has found in studies of viewer response to other television shows that people tend to comment more about content they are seeing for the first time. While companies may be losing some of the in-the-moment reactions they would have generated by debuting their ads only during the Super Bowl, Hill predicts that plenty of viewers will still be seeing the ads for the first time during the game.

“The Super Bowl is a huge opportunity to get eyeballs on your brand from every single demographic all across the country all at one time,” Hill says. “And you need that — you can’t just use YouTube in most cases and expect the ad to be talked about. A lot of what prompts all of this attention is the fact that so many people watch the Super Bowl.”