Reference no: EM133340347

Case Study: Asus

ASUS is a Taiwan-based, multinational computer hardware and consumer electronics company that was established in 1989. Dedicated to creating products for today's and tomorrow's smart life, ASUS is the world's No. 1 motherboard and gaming brand as well as a top-three consumer notebook vendor. ASUS became widely known in North America when it revolutionized the PC industry in 2007 with its Eee PC TMg Today, the company is pioneering new mobile trends with the ASUS ZenFone series, and it is rapidly developing virtual and augmented reality products as well as IOT devices and robotics technologies. Most recently, ASUS introduced Zenbo, a smart home robot designed to provide assistance, entertainment, and companionship to families. In 2015 and 2016, Fortune magazine recognized ASUS as one of the World's Most Admired Companies, and for the past four years Interbrand has ranked ASUS Taiwan's most valuable international brand. The company has more than 17,000 employees, including a world-class R&D team. Driven by innovation and committed to quality, ASUS won 4,385 awards and earned approximately US$13.3 billion in revenue in 2016. ASUS comes from the last four letters of Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that represents the inspiration of art and learning. ASUS embodies the strength, creative spirit and purity symbolized by this regal and agile mythical creature, soaring to new heights of quality and innovation with each product it introduces to the market.

Branding

ASUS continues to deliver on our In Search of Incredible promise as we strive to become the world's most admired leading enterprise in the new digital era. Our In Search of incredible campaign, launched in 2011, symbolizes our Design Thinking - Start with People philosophy. It extends beyond product design and development, sales and marketing, and illustrates the ASUS commitment to making life better through innovation.

The Indian Personal Computer (PC) Market

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker reveals that HP led the PC market with a share of 30.8% and shipments reaching 1.15 million units. This was followed by Dell with a market share of 21.6% (and a 15.2% YoY growth) in the second position. The third spot was grabbed by Lenovo with a share of 19.6%, Acer in the fourth position with a share of 8.9%, and Asus in the fifth spot with a market share of 6.1%. Others accounted for a share of 13%. Lenovo, Acer, and Asus went on to see a YoY growth of 38.8%, 66.7%. and 53.3%, respectively. India's PC shipments (desktops, notebooks and tablets) rocketed by 48% in Q1 2022 to a record- breaking 5.8 million units, beating the previous record of 5.3 million in Q3 2021. In the last six quarters, shipments have grown by 44% on average, despite sustained pressure on the global supply chain. They have now surpassed the 5 million-mark for a third quarter in a row. India now accounts for 5% of global PC shipments, compared with just 3% two years ago. Notebooks were the largest category, with 3.4 million units shipped, up 36% year on year. Desktop shipments surpassed 880,000 units, a phenomenal 64% increase over Q1 2021. But tablets were the strongest category, with shipments reaching 1.6 million, up 69% on a year ago, largely due to government orders picking up again after a two-year hiatus.

Asus India

Arnold Su, Business lead of Consumer & Gaming PC, Asus India, has been in India for about a decade now and everyday wanting to learn more and more about the Indian market. He is fascinated with how in a country where one part of the country is watching videos on their Tablet PCs on how poverty in India is growing every day. Arnold is fascinated by the Indian market and he wanted to understand the Indian consumer and therefore, he decided to consult with Dr. Hitesh Kalro and Mihir Shah on the current Indian market, and how to further penetrate into this market. In their first meeting, which took place in the last week of June 2022, Arnold discussed the challenges of creating a digital marketing plan for the Indian market, in which most consumers who watched videos and who are avid subscribers of live streaming platforms are people who earn less than Rs. 10,000 a month. And at the same time, the right target audience for their laptops were present on various digital channels. One of the biggest challenges that Arnold felt that he faced was performance marketing. At the end of the first meeting, Arnold stated that the challenge was calculating the return on marketing investments, especially when there are multiple campaigns running together at any given point of time.

Over the next few weeks, they met a few times to really understand the problem that Asus was facing. In one of the meetings, Mihir asked a question which gave clarity regarding where the problem lies. Mihir asked, how many buyer personas have you created and how (meaning the channels that you are using) are your targeting these different buyer personas. It was only after this, both Mihir and Hitesh got involved in creating buyer personas. The initial phase of the consulting project was to look at only the laptops segment. Based on a 3-month in-depth research on the product offerings, interacting with the current customers, analyzing the current customer database, and using secondary research, they narrowed the number of buyer personas to 5 (as you can see listed on the Asus website). When this analysis was proposed to Arnold, hp said that there can be seven buyer personas, and after a much-heated argument between the three, they kept five buyer personas. This led to another question, and that was, how do we make digital campaigns for different buyer personas, when a new line of laptops, the ROG series, that are premium gaming laptops is getting launched in the month of July. Arnold then said, Mihir and Hitesh, why don't you guys meet with Paramjeet Mehta, our marketing head and come up with creative digital marketing plan for this financial year. Before the meeting with Paramjeet, Hitesh and Mihir decided to understand the digital marketing strategy implemented by Asus India and then seen if they could recommend a similar digital marketing plan to Paramjeet for the laptop segment for the financial year 2022-23. So, to understand this how to make a good digital marketing strategy, both, Mihir and Hitesh knew that they had to make an in-depth customer journey mapping for each buyer persona and also understand how Asus can evaluate and measure the effectiveness of all the campaigns (both offline and online) ana understand which channels and which campaigns performed well. In order to do this, Hitesh and Mihir sat down with Paramjeet Mehta. Paramjeet Mehta is the marketing head of consumer PC and gaming for Asus India. In one of the meetings, Paramjeet was giving the breakup of the total marketing expenditure to Hitesh and Mihir and was telling them that, that over the last few years though there has been a steady increase in the marketing budget, but the challenge is to measure the KPI for all channels. Paramjeet had done his homework and was very-well prepared for the meeting. He came with all the numbers and when he sat in the meeting, it felt as if he was shocked to see the returns for each individuals' channels. Even before he sat down for the meeting, he said, Hitesh, I cannot believe that the returns on search engine campaigns is negative. Are these numbers even right? How do I justify this to Arnold. The entire discussion was pertaining to understand the overall marketing budget and its efficacy. Arnold had approved a budget of almost Rs. 50 crores in the financial year 2021. With the array of products being offered by Asus India, it took Paramjeet almost a week to get back with the marketing budget for laptops, which was roughly about Rs. 5 crores (10 percent of the total marketing budget). The next step was to understand the marketing team's philosophy regarding digital marketing. And what was the perception of the marketers regarding the Indian consumers and their online behavior. So, first, Hitesh and Mihir sat down with some of the key marketing decision-makers at Asus India and found that everyone knew the importance of digital channels and the role these channels played in terms of making a decision regarding purchasing of laptops. Furthermore, one of the key learnings from the team discussions was that most knew the importance creating influencer and viral campaigns. And this was only possible if the firm's brand storytelling was clear and everyone in the marketing team were on board with the story. Based on the initial discussions, it was clear to Mihir and Hiteshthat they knew what was needed to be done. Furthermore, they understood that if they had to make good digital marketing campaigns, they will have to understand the Indian consumers and understand their online buying behavior. Therefore, they decided to conduct primary research, in which they wanted to understand the Indian consumers and their psychological characteristics.

Indian consumers

Indian consumers in the upper socio-economic class who live in urban cities in India have the following cultural values:

High Power Distance - People are willing to accept there is a difference between the rich and poor. All human beings are not born equal, and it is up to the individual to make one's destiny.
High Self-esteem - Indian consumers have complete belief in themselves that they will make it big in life and achieve all their dreams and aspirations. In the Indian society, often people hear about rags to rich stories on a daily basis, and therefore, the youth in this country believe in themselves and in their hard work.
High Utilitarianism - People buy products only if they find value in it. People do not easily get enticed by offers and discounts. Basically, people apply mind and heart when they buy products.
High Innovativeness - People like to try new and different things. People often try new brands and are not afraid of failing in their creativity.
High gifting trends - People like to purchase gifts for their loved ones. With the number of festivals, in India people like to treat their family. Furthermore, when Indians visit their relatives in other cities, they prefer carrying expensive gifts for them.
Low Celebrity orientation - People are attracted to celebrity endorsements and if the celebrity has the same personality as they do then they tend to change their preference as per the celebrity.
The above research was done to understand what effects the Indian consumer purchasing behavior. What are the Indian consumer values and how they perceive themselves in the Indian society. As it can be seen Indian consumers are willing to try new brands and are becoming highly individualist in their values. In addition, the Indian consumers are willing to work hard to achieve their dreams but at the same time are not enticed by celebrities. This new India is changing with the changing times and consumers are becoming more utilitarian. Once, this research was conducted it was time to discuss how various campaigns can be created and what are the total number of campaigns and what would be the budget split. This would help to create successful digital marketing plan for this financial year. After having a few quick meetings with Arnold and Paramjeet, both Hitesh and Mihir recommended that the focus should be influencer marketing and make as many viral campaigns as possible when the firm is launching a new laptop. Furthermore, resources should be allotted to fundamental channels, such as, search engine advertising, social media marketing, and search engine optimization.

The final question that Arnold wanted Hitesh and Mihir to look into is how the Indian consumer purchased laptops and whether their marketing campaign and activities were in line with the consumer behavior. So, both of them started working on a basic framework and found that most consumers purchased laptops offline (roughly 75% purchased offline) but would heavily rely on online channels for information search and evaluation of alternatives. And, based on primary research, Hitesh and Mihir found that the marketing budget for the financial year 2021-22 was split 40:60. That is, 40 percent of the last year's marketing budget was spent on offline channels (such as, television and print ads), and 60 percent was spent on online channels (such as, SEM, SEO and Social media marketing). This leads to another important question, that is, how could Hitesh and Mihir justify a 40:60 split when most consumers purchased high involvement products such as laptops, especially, premium laptops offline. Hence, both of them were thinking of a potential campaign that would integrate both offline and online channels. Both, Hitesh and Mihir knew the importance of a great integration campaign, as these campaigns make a buzz and if implemented well could go viral as well.

In the end, both Hitesh and Mihir were in a dilemma, as they knew the importance of creating an integration of offline and online campaigns, which though granted are difficult to implement, but if implemented well could make a buzz. At the same time, the marketing team under Paramjeet are keener about going for influencer and viral marketing campaign approach. Though this is a tested and well adapted digital marketing approach, but there is a risk of choosing wrong social media influencers and this may cause a major concern in creating a positive brand image in the long run.

QUESTIONS:

1. how to overcome the challenges of performance marketing?

2. how to calculate return on marketing investment of multiple campaigns running simultaneously?

3. What should be the 5 buyer personas? how will you target them?

4. What should be the digital marketing campaigns for the 5 buyer personas? What should be the Customer Journey Map?

5. What should be the overall digital marketing strategy?

6. What should be the different digital marketing channels and how will you measure KPIs for these channels?

7. What should be the overall marketing budget and its efficacy?

8. Amongst influencer and viral campaigns as well as integrated online and offline campaigns, what should be chosen?