2014 Marketing Budget Planning Form: Fill & Download for Free

I’m surprised no one mentioned about OnePlus . It is shaking up an industry of giant brands with almost no budget. OnePlus launched with just $300 in their marketing budget. Here’s how word-of-mouth drove their remarkable brand recognition.It all started with OnePlus One . Their first smartphone.It’s the smartphone that’s managed to dominate the market in a very short amount of time, an impressive feat accomplished largely due to a clever marketing plan. OnePlus one earned the title as the new king of mid-range smartphones and the buzz surrounding the product grew at an unprecedented rate.The demand for the invite-only smartphone was so great that traffic to the website skyrocketed, reaching 25.6M visits in December 2014 – just one year after the OnePlus website was launched.The OnePlus craze: How the company did it1. Pick a fight with an established competitor – a really loud fight to attract attentionOnePlus came out of the door guns blazing.Its official press release hailed its OnePlus One phone as a “2014 flagship killer” because it offered comparable specs at much lower prices. The successor (OnePlus 2) went one step further, calling its 2015 model a “flagship killer” of 2016.It accompanied these bold statements with an even more provocative campaign to “Smash the Past”, in which fans would film themselves destroying their smartphones from competitors for a chance to win the OnePlus One; co-founder Carl Pei claims they attracted 140,000 entries.Their message was so loud and clear that geeks everywhere continued to debate whether the phones are truly “must-have”. Meanwhile, OnePlus enjoyed all the sales from onlookers who wanted to see what the fuss is all about.2. An invite-only system builds exclusivity and demandWhile OnePlus has transitioned away from the invites-only system of smartphone sales that made them (in)famous, they still relied on it to build launch hype.The exclusivity of the phone makes everybody want it a little more, and talk about it a lot more. They even ran contests and giveaways where the invite used to be the prize.They have also found other ways to build the aura of exclusivity, by having pop-up stores that offer only the chance to view the phone, and not to purchase it.If people are willing to queue just to see the phone, surely it must be something worth talking about.Despite complaints about the invite system, it served its purpose by building up a core, vocal fan base, from which OnePlus can now grow organically.3. Be the first to do something, so people talk about itThe OnePlus One may have been the first phone of 2014 to be priced at the mid-range, yet share many of the same specs as high-end flagship phones. This established its reputation as a flagship killer for many of the technocrats and became an easy recommendation all through the year.It was also the first to make a case that makes your iPhone look like a OnePlus, or a drone called DR-1 (dr-o-n-e, geddit?).For the OnePlus Two, OnePlus continued to harness the potential of being the first-mover, equipping their phone with a unique Alert Slider and USB type-C connector, before anyone else.Even their product launch had to be the “world’s first” in Virtual Reality.4. Be transparent about criticisms and directly respond to your fans whenever possibleOnePlus has been remarkably transparent, and Pei unusually accessible, to their fans. This has helped build rapport between the company and its users.His accessibility has endeared him to many OnePlus fans. Pei’s open apology on the OnePlus forums drew an outpouring of support and discussion.More recently, his recent blog post, in which he asks Samsung for advice on OnePlus’s logistic issues, immediately drew media attention as well. Fans also commented that they appreciated his transparency and acknowledgement of OnePlus’s flaws.5. Carve your own niche and dominate itOnePlus looked at all the controversy around its marketing, and chose to embrace it. In interviews, Pei speaks frequently about OnePlus’ advertising goals, and he has even written open blog posts detailing their marketing strategy.As a result, they can pull off marketing stunts like releasing phone specifications one at a time to build hype because they know that fans will “appreciate [it more] than making one big announcement”. In other words, their fans know what they are getting into, and want to be hyped up!Recently Oneplus 3 , Oneplus 3T has been remarkable success as well.PS: Lot of these were initial marketing strategies they used during their initial launch of Oneplus one, Oneplus 2. Although Oneplus 3 launched without any invite system they continue build the hype with their social media/marketing strategy. Nowadays they do spend a bit on marketing/ads but not to the extent of other brands like Samsung.Source :How OnePlus Got Word-of-Mouth With A $300 Marketing BudgetHow OnePlus One's Marketing Strategy Made it So DesirableHow OnePlus is taking on the mobile giantsImage Credits: OnePlus

I will express an opinion which may be contrary to present narrative across the country:Union budget 2019:Few questions first :Does the budget represent current realities in this country. ?Does it look like a confidence vision by a government who has been reelected with such massive mandate?Does the budget has any concrete plans and visions for future?Does the budget present any blue print on what does being 5 trillion economy means?Does the budget change anything for Education particularly school and college education?Does the budget change anything on delivery of health services ?Does the budget do anything to rah the goal of doubling farmers income by 2022?Does the budget do anything on creating Jobs?If you will go through the budget speech and documents and details published in the media you will find the budget to be DAMP SQUIB , a document which does not represent any reality of such massive mandate and seems to be a half hearted exercise which had to be statutorily completed and the government had no interest in putting its vision and mission for the next 5 years.The government had an opportunity to be bold and aggressive in changing the reality of this nation in many ways but it has not got out off its habit of raising platitudes which are hollow .The budget has 2 good proposals and they are : Piped water in every village and solid waste treatment as part of Swach 2 initiative.For the above list :Government had massive opportunity to focus on improving EDUCATION and HEALTH infrastructure, which would have turned India into advanced nation and deliveries and qualities would have matched any where globally and this would have created lakhs and lakhs of jobs for the youth. But sorry the government is not interested and we as people of India are indifferent to it; the media awakes only when there is outbreak of preventable disease and death like in Gorakhpur and Muzzafarpur ……..The government had massive opportunity to legally introduce BT seeds , dismantle APMC and increase government procurement, create infrastructure for COLD chain, rainwater harvesting, rehabilitating water bodies, rehabilitating rivers. Just understand when there is no water for irrigation in hinterland, villages, from where the water for piped supply will be sourced. Presently India is defined as water scare geography for 9 of the 12 months every year, the depleting water sources and unavailability of drinking water in TN , parched fields of Marathwada, Bundelkhand , Orissa etc do not interest us and sorry the government is also not interested.Without proper health, education, suitable employbility , with low or no returns on investments to farmer, small and marginal business, SME, MSME. Export sectors it does not matter if the Stock Market declares India to be 5 trillion economy, this government claims that we became 2 trillion economy between 2014–2019 but does it change anything on ground level. NO. The government had massive opportunity to push the gains of the so called booming economy to the bottom of the pyramid but other than few cosmetic changes here and there nothing concrete has been done or intentions to do have been displayed.The availability of power , drinking water, the mismanagement of traffic and services in most urban centers , the massive urban decay all around us , The waste management situation, the air, water, land pollution, maintenance and improvement of public assets , the climate change, and other issues do not interest most of us and as we do not talk about it and are SORRY the government is indifferent and just not interested.I have not touched other issues like Banking, NBFC, Defence, etc as I believe there are people who can articulate better then me on these issues. Based on my experience across the country i hoped the government after getting such massive approvals and mandate would get down from High Pedestal and use this opportunity to realy bring change in our lives and give a massive push to become a developed and high income nation but alas it seems its our destiny to be member of mid income countries and looking at the budget it seems the government is just not interested to push us to being high income country and as usual we the people of the country are not interested and we are actually happy at the crumbs being thrown to us in form of IT rebate which is nullified by surcharge on fuel in mid to long term and proves the claim of being a 2–3 trillion economy with robust Tax collection both direct and indirect and massive success of GST as patently false and untrue.Post Script:I do not how many of the readers follow non GODI media but a news has been circulating which is not VIRAL as it is of no consequence and importance : Students in Pitthoragarh district ( which is on tri-junction of boundary between India-Nepal-China) are agitating for teachers and latest books in the library of the college. But no body is giving them a hearing; the fact is latest books in the library are of 1987 vintage; nearly 30 years since new books were purchased; still the students are studying about Soviet Union and cold war but soviet Union does not exist, Cold war has been won, Berlin wall no longer exist .Pitthoragarh is not an exception but similar conditions exist across the country.The above displays apathy of the political class and the government despite having received massive mandate in 2019 has shown no empathy towards such conditions of our colleges across the country.But as the media, and common citizens of this country is not interested in these news the government is also does not talk or speak about it and these issues do not attract traction among common citizens of this country hence there is no protest on import duty imposed on importing books.

What are your views on the Union Budget of India (2017–18)?An implicit question in this one is if it is a good budget overall or not. I feel that a better approach towards this year’s budget would be a comparative one. Let’s see how the budget highlights fare against what was done earlier. Let’s also try to uncover some of the stuff in the budget which have not been highlighted but which are, nevertheless, important.Agriculture:Long term irrigation corpus has been doubled from Rs. 20,000 crore to Rs. 40,000 crore.A micro-irrigation fund of Rs. 5000 crore is also to be setup. This is supposed to help in drought mitigation as only 40% of the total cultivated land in the country is irrigated. However, there are rising requests to streamline and efficiently implement the subsidy scheme that is already present for micro-irrigation. Normally, farmers want to set up the micro irrigation systems, after the monsoon season is over. However, the pre-sanction can take very long. Many a times, the subsidy disbursal is delayed by two to three years after the farmer submits his application. [1]A special fund for dairy processing and infrastructure development of Rs. 8000 crore will be created. This is a good step to bring sustainability to agriculture. Farmers have shown abilities to manage inclement weather and market vagaries by investing in dairy as an alternate source of income. The fund is supposedly enough to modernize India’s dairy processing infrastructure which is 30–40 years old and also create new milk processing cooperatives of the size of Amul. [2] [3]The govt. will set up mini labs in the Krishi Vigyan Kendras for soil testing.The farmer credit has been increased from Rs. 9 lakh crore in FY 2016–17 to Rs. 10 lakh crore in 2017–18. Increased focus will be given to Eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir since they have been under-served.Rural Population:Allocation for MGNREGA has been increased from Rs. 38,500 crore last year to Rs. 48,000 crore, the highest ever allocation. This comes in spite of the current govt. not being an advocate for the scheme. Two years of drought has forced the govt. to bailout the rural sector using the scheme which, though is a money guzzling monster, has wide reach and deep ground work in rural India. It’d be interesting to see how the govt. performs.The budget allocation for Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana has remained the same at Rs. 19,000 crore. However, according to govt. reports, the rate of road construction has increased from 70–80 kms per between 2011–14 to 100 kms per day in 2014–16. Now it stands at 139 kms per day. [4][5]Targeting to complete 1 crore houses for the rural homeless, the allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Awaas Yojana has been increased from Rs. 15,000 crore to Rs. 23,000 crore. [6]Mr. Jaitley has claimed that the country was well on its way to provide 100% rural electrification by March 2018. However “The Hindu”, has done some investigative journalism and has found that the earlier claims by the govt. regarding rural electrification to be grossly exaggerated. Hence we can take Mr. Jaitley’s claim with a pinch of salt. [7] [8]The govt. is planning to make 50,000 gram panchayats out of 2,50,000 total gram panchayats in India to be poverty free. The problem is the definition of the poverty line. Since the NITI Aayog has been formed, there hasn’t been any clear definition of the poverty line. There was a news report claiming that the Aayog supported the Tendulkar Poverty line of Rs. 33 a day. But later another news report claimed that the Aayog is likely to form another committee to cautiously determine the poverty line. [9] [10] [11]Poor and the under-privileged:Rs. 500 crore has been allocated for setting up Mahila Shakti Kendras in the 14 lakh Anganwadis across the country. It will be a one stop convergent service for empowering rural women with opportunities for skill development, employment, digital literacy, health and nutrition. But the problem is that Rs. 500 crore divided by 14 lakh anganwadis comes to Rs. 3,571 per anganwadi. I don’t know what can be achieved with this amount. Another problem is that the Anganwadis have been set up under the ICDS which has seen budget cuts to the tune of 50% (Rs. 8000 crore) in the past two years. [13] [14]The total outlay for the development of women and children across ministries is Rs. 1.84 lakh crore. This forms 8.57% of the total estimated budgetary expenditure of Rs. 21.47 lakh crore. It is also an increase of over 0.5% from last years budget where Rs. 1.56 lakh crore out of Rs. 19.78 lakh crore was budgeted to spent on women and children development schemes across ministries.The amount budgeted for Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana saw a four times jump with Rs. 2,700 crore being set aside this year as compared to Rs. 634 crore in 2016-17. Under this scheme, Rs. 6000 will be provided to all pregnant women who seek institutionalized delivery and vaccination. [14]The allocation for Scheduled Castes is Rs. 52,393 crore, an increase of 35% from the allocation previous year which stood at Rs. 38,833 crore. But we must take it with a pinch of salt. In 2014–15 the budgetary allocation was Rs. 50,548 crore. It was reduced by 40% the next year. Also, according the Jadhav committee recommendations, budgetary allocations for the SC’s should be 4.62% of the total expenditure, which comes out to around Rs. 97,000 crore in 2017–18 and Rs. 82,000 crore in 2014–15 when the actual allotment was Rs. 50,548 crore.Same goes for the allocation for Scheduled Tribes. It stands at Rs. 31,295 crore, a jump of 30% over the previous allocation of Rs. 24,005 crores. But the Jadhav committee recommends allocating Rs. 49,992 crores for 2017–18. Interestingly, here too, in 2014–15, against the committee recommendation of allocating Rs. 42,141 crores, the actual allocation was Rs. 32,387 crore, higher than the present allocation. [15] [16] [17]Aadhar based smart cards will be issued to senior citizens to monitor health.Railways and infrastructure:The budgetary allocation for infrastructure stands at a whopping Rs. 3.96 lakh crore. This is close to 80% increase from the previous budgetary allotment of Rs. 2.21 lakh crore.The budgetary allocation for railways has also been increased to Rs. 1.31 lakh crore from Rs. 1.21 lakh crore previous year.The budgetary allocation for highways too continued the upward trend. Rs. 64,000 crore was allocated as against Rs. 55,000 crore last year. It was Rs. 28,881 crore in 2014–15 and Rs. 42,913 crore in 2015–16.Finance:The allocation for lending under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, a scheme for funding non corporate small businesses, has been increased from Rs. 1.80 lakh crore to Rs. 2.44 lakh crore.For big-time offences - including economic offenders fleeing India, the government will introduce legislative change or introduce law to confiscate the assets of these people within the country. This is especially important considering the Vijay Mallya episode.Digital India - BHIM app will unleash mobile phone revolution. The government will introduce two schemes to promote BHIM App - referral bonus for the users and cash back for the traders. This plan is consistent with the push to digitization. However, we are missing a huge point. For digitization, we need cellphones, which in turn need cellphone towers, which in their turn need electricity. Where is electricity? In an earlier point I mentioned about the lapses in the claims of the govt. regarding rural electrification. In my view, the push to digitization should continue, however, rural electrification and cellular infrastructure are a must if this is to succeed. [7] [8]Taxation:There is some cheer for the salaried class. The tax rate for income between Rs. 2.5 lakhs to Rs. 5 lakh has been slashed by half. And those earning higher will see a tax benefit of Rs. 12,500 per year.10% surcharge on individual income above Rs. 50 lakh and up to Rs 1 crore to make up for Rs 15,000 crore loss due to cut in personal I-T rate. 15% surcharge on individual income above Rs. 1 crore to remain.The Income Tax Act to be amended to ensure that no transaction above Rs 3 lakh is permitted in cash.Under the corporate tax, in order to make MSME companies more viable, there is a proposal to reduce tax for small companies with a turnover of up to Rs. 50 crore to 25%. As compared to bigger corporations, they don’t enjoy a lot of exemptions. Hence while a corporation earning a profit of Rs. 500 crore would effectively pay a tax rate of 24.67%, the MSME’s had to pay full 30% corporate tax. [18]Fiscal situation and miscellaneous:Total budgetary expenditure is Rs. 21.47 lakh crore.Fiscal deficit of 2017-18 pegged at 3.2% of the GDP. Will remain committed to achieving 3% in the next year.The defence sector gets an allocation of Rs. 2,74,114 crore, excluding pensions. It is a modest 6% increase which may not even be able to meet the impact of inflation, depreciation of the rupee and the imposition of customs duty on military imports from last year. [19] [20]Political parties and funding:The maximum cash donation that a political party can receive from a single source is reduced from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 2,000. People are quoting it as a step towards greater political transparency. In reality however, it is a complete hogwash. As long as anonymous donations are allowed, black cash will keep flowing into the coffers of the political parties. Earlier they’d say donations worth Rs. 2,00,000 have come from 11 donors, all anonymous. Now they’d say the same amount has come from 101 donors, all anonymous. [21] [22]Where is the increased push towards education?Overall, this budget focuses a lot on agriculture, which has been neglected for a very long time. This is something which is really heartening. It also reflects the mood of the current govt. to keep up the boost towards infrastructure.However it does miss out or gloss over or simply carry on what was already there in important fields such as education, health care and defence.In terms of allocations towards SC/ST’s and political funding, this budget has been a colossal disappointment.Links:Budget 2017: Micro-irrigation industry demands better implementation of subsidiesUnion Budget 2017: Nabard hails higher fund allocation for irrigation, dairy sectorIndia to add ‘two Amuls’ milk capacity in 3 years - Times of IndiaRural roads' construction pace increases to 139km/day - The Economic TimesBudget 2017: Government aims to bring 1 crore households out of poverty by 2019Union Budget 2017: 53 per cent more funds for rural housesOn paper, electrified villages — in reality, darknessRural electrification: Centre’s claim exaggeratedNiti Aayog task force backs ‘Tendulkar poverty line’Niti Aayog to set up panel to draw up a new poverty line - Times of IndiaDefining a poverty line for IndiaWhat to expect from the budget's Mahila Shakti Kendras: Not much, say activistsMahila Shakti Kendras to boost skill development - Times of IndiaBudget 2017: Allocation to women and child development ministry up by 20%Union Budget 2017: Over 30 percent hike for SC-ST welfare in budget allocation‘Budget a major disappointment for SC/STs’The 2017 Budget Is Taking SC/ST Welfare BackwardsBudget 2017: Corporate tax for MSMEs with revenue under Rs 50 cr at 25%Budget 2017: Arun Jaitley raises defence budget by 10 per cent to Rs 2,74,000 croreDefence Budget 2017-18: Chugging AlongWhy Modi Government's Political Funding Reforms May Just Be a Smokescreen₹2,000 ceiling for cash donation to parties