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He took us through the days when Xbox was launched in India, to the time when it struggled to find its feet, till the time when it captured 64% market share of next generation consoles in India. ...
The lecture or rather the story as cited by Mr. Bindra started with emphasis on the importance of online media as marketing tool. He stressed on the fact that “Internet has to be the first marketing medium and not the 4th or 5th”. He took us through the days when Xbox was launched in India, to the time when it struggled to find its feet, till the time when it captured 64% market share of next generation consoles in India.
Mr.Bindra explained that any product launch is a 3 step procedure: Super brand building, super business building and market creation and expansion. Mr.Bindra said that during the launch of Xbox in India, the market potential looked huge due to a very high percentage of young population. This prompted Microsoft to build and launch the brand quickly. About 100 games, 200 outlets and demo kiosks were launched. As a result of this, a super gaming brand was built. But this was all in vain as Mr.Bindra stated “Building a brand is nothing unless you make profit”. There was still a need to create a super business.
According to Mr.Bindra, “This launch suffered from Marketing Myopia: the gaming industry in India was only $300 million, but the entertainment industry was a whopping $20 billion”.
Mr. Bindra said that Xbox was then promoted not just as a gaming console but as an entertainment powerhouse. Families were targeted, birthday parties were organised in collaboration with other organisations like Pepsi co. Xbox was conceptualised as Interactive Entertainment Business(IEB) by adding features like broadband inlet, video chat, launching facebook communities, etc. Mr. Bindra mentioned that “Price is meaningless, value is important”. Realisation of value to the customers was the new goal of Xbox marketing team.
As a result of this the Xbox was transformed from a mere brand to a super selling business, incubated with the underlying brand value. Infact, according to Mr.Bindra there was a time when Xbox outshone the sales of I-phone and I-pad combined. He concluded by talking about the third step in product launch process, i.e ’the market creation and expansion’, which according to him is an ever continuing process and will go on till the product lasts.